The Peninsula

The Fiction and Poetry Archive of Liana Mir and scribblemyname

Close Encounters of the Gander Kind

May
16

There’s an angry goose whose job it is to know these things. They say the reason so few people meet their soulmate is because the goose can only herd around one soul at a time in the direction of their mate and until the goslings grow up, the country just has too many people to get through before it’s your turn.

Every country has its own soul guide. Theirs is the angry goose. Yata always wondered but didn’t dare ask if someone else had the happy goose. Had he asked, his mother would have told him, they’re all angry, dear, they’re overworked.

He doesn’t really think anything of it when he’s skateboarding past a park and there are birds flying up startled from the ground, making small angry sounds at his disturbance. Not until a very loud angry honking doesn’t fly up. Instead it follows him, startling him back into careening right off the skateboard into the grass.

And there’s an angry goose in his face. It thrusts its beak at him as if it wants him to get moving.


Fushimi Saruhiko was prepared for many kinds of craziness to be a part of his workday, but the last thing he expected was a certain familiar redheaded skateboarder to come tearing through Scepter 4 chased by a honking, biting goose close on his heels. Misaki crashed into Saruhiko’s desk, and the goose stopped to glare at them both with one beady eye.

It gave one last smug honk and waddled away.