Spaghetti All'oca Selvatica

FICTION
by Kal Mota Lopes

An execution was impending, which the geese didn’t have a foggy idea about. Rod Petard Krise was a great shot; their fate was sealed.  

He could hit anything. His old friends even joked that if Rod lost his legs, he could still hit the road and leave town.  

The nature of this tragedy is simply the tragedy of nature. It was either kill or be killed, and these birds weren’t armed with a Colt Single Action Army revolver. Rod preferred not to use a rifle, and with his six shooter, he felt like Pat Garrett chasing Billy the Kid.  

The piece was passed down from his father, who had custom-built it out of radiant gold. In Rod’s youth, the two found deep solace in the tales of the gun-slinging legends, and rarely would you find them watching anything besides westerns.  

Rod estimated it to be worth a fortune but it was his prized possession and he would sooner die than part with it. 

The fowl sat exactly 220 yards from the rock he perched on. Rod aimed his shiny rod at his prey and realized that this shot would be tougher than usual (from 40 British rods away). The perfect opportunity to test out his new scope. He was excited for an increase in difficulty because the hunts had become too easy. 

Suddenly, pain filled his body as several sharp sticks poked his backside when he was adjusting his aim. These butt rods enraged him, but Rod aimed none of this anger towards his victims. That was against his nature. He didn’t like thinking of himself as a killer, but rather as a teacher to the geese, helping them grow stronger and avoid danger by making them into examples. He took a long sip of wine from his water bottle. 

During hunts, Rod would spend hours carefully studying the carelessness and intelligence of each bird. You see, bullets were expensive, and through countless trips and celebration dinners and IPA flights, he had racked up quite the debt. His day job studying psychological anthropology wasn’t bringing in enough, so he taught Biology at a local high school on the side. In fact, Rod came from a long line of psychological anthropologist biology teachers, so he was a natural nature analyst. He knew a dumb bird when he saw one: the perfect sacrifice.  

Over time, it became apparent that the surviving birds would learn more and more with each succeeding hunt. Whether it was out of love or a divine thirst for power, Rod became obsessed with testing the flock. He wasn’t just a stick in the mud, he was an almond tree stuck in a quagmire. They were his students and he would make them strong.  

After the first poaching, their flee patterns became more and more complex. Almost as if they knew how firearms worked and considered which evasive maneuvers would increase their likelihood of survival. Their “v” formations turned into unpredictable shapes with no clear discernible approach. 

This did not, however, stop Rod from expertly firing so that the fowl followed their flight path straight into the bullet. He knew exactly how to lead them there. Rod had a divine fixation on observing his students that bordered on obsession. Any move they made seemed predictable to him. Often he'd leave his favorite geese alive by choice– until now. 

Cassandra was a goose he’d observed for a while. A bird of seemingly average intelligence, she caught his eye with her big head, long neck, and unique shrieking voice. But most of all with her strange nature.  

Despite quickly learning from her peers' mistakes, each time he’d set up his hunting spot, she would be grounded in a clear line of sight. She would appear almost too still, often staring in his direction. He’d chalked this up to pure coincidence and hoped it was a weakness he could weed out of her.  

Unfortunately, she had failed him one too many times and now it was her turn to become an example. For his twenty-first lesson, his scope was set on her. However, after inspecting the wound inflicted on his behind, it seemed she had moved much closer to him. Too close. Was she egging him on? 

First, he aimed his sights at her breast and heart but decided that her distinctive head was a better target. Rod had observed her before, but he’d never seen Cassandra this clear. She had a sort of regal poise he had never noticed before.  

He studied her eyes. They studied him back. There was something in her empty stare that told Rod she knew him well. It was impossible. The thought that she might have foresight into her approaching fate at his hands unnerved him.  

Rod put his finger on the trigger and took a deep breath. She couldn’t have had any idea that she was about to die. In this split second of hesitation, Cassandra took flight. Rod recoiled in astonishment, causing him to fall backward into the same sharpened branches and knock over his open ammunition box.  

His side and the back of his right knee were sliced open and he was forced into a kneel, putting all of his weight on thirty silver scattered bullets drenched in blood. Expeditiously, he took aim and analyzed her trajectory. Goosebumps traveled down his body as he squeezed the cold metal against his skin. Crosshairs aimed three feet in front of her path; a perfect shot. He exhaled. Sharp winds from her beating wings kissed his cheek. The moment the bullet left the gun, Cassandra flexed her wings and swiftly turned south.  

He never taught her that. 

Painful ringing filled Rod’s ears as the bullet traveled unhindered toward the heavens. The first bullet he’d fired without ending a life in years.  

The forest was shrouded in darkness as the flock erupted into the air and suffocated the sun. Feathers rained from the skies. A thousand wings blanketed and cleansed every inch of the earth below.  

Rod stared up in disbelief at his pupils- they weren’t just fleeing, they were protecting her. At that moment the geese were one. There was a collective understanding among the masses: It was either take flight or be flighted.  

He desperately fired three more shots, unable to discern Cassandra from any other goose in the chaos. The chorus of honking and flapping wings drowned out the thunderous booms as the flock effortlessly orchestrated turns that cut through the atmosphere during the exact moment of impact, perfectly mirroring Cassandra’s movements. 

Rod’s calm and controlled composure was erased as rage consumed his entire body. He was their teacher- not Cassandra. He pulled the strings. He’s the one who conquered nature and tamed the wild. Suddenly everything was clear. This was his test. Cassandra, his once dear student, printed her salient long neck and big head onto a silhouette over the horizon, taunting him. 

Rod took off south after her with such an unyielding and all-consuming fire that nothing could impede him, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. He chased the wild goose for miles on nothing but small glimpses of her flapping wings in the distance until she was one with the constellations of the night sky and the day's warmth was consumed by the moon's silver glow. At some point, the forest became a dense labyrinth of towering trees, leaving only occasional glimpses of the sky.             

He had passed and ignored several signs prohibiting trespassing in the area and warning of its grave consequences. Rod didn’t care. 

It’s not like there was anywhere he could return to. Debt collectors had probably just finished confiscating everything he had ever owned. All he required was his golden gun, and on his father’s soul, their grimy hands would never touch it. Not to mention those cowardly old friends of his and their flight as soon as things went south. The ones that abandoned him right after they took away his psychology license, at a time when he needed them the most. Worst of all that conniving pompous bitch who got his teaching position at school replaced.  

Right now he had a purpose and everything else paled in comparison. He would run until one of them fell to the ground. This was all that mattered. 

The crimson that painted from his wounds down to the tattered holes in his shoes was gradually transitioning to an oxidized bronze. 

There hadn’t been any sight of his old student in who knows how long. His mind was still completely devoid of doubt. Why would the time passing make any difference? Who knows how long he’d been out here at all?  

His muscles screamed although he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt them anyways. Through a particularly thick patch of shrubbery, he heard the sound of running water; a perfect landing strip. 

As Rod struggled through, the sharp thorns piercing his scalp and chest were nothing compared to the ecstasy of slowing down. He stopped in the center for less than a moment and sighed. Only half of a breath had exited his lungs when two extraordinary things happened simultaneously: first, a flashlight’s beam pierced the darkness from behind him and second, Rod heard an unmistakable shriek on the other side of the bushes. 

Faster than he’d ever moved, he rushed to the other side. The thorns ripped his skin to smithereens. Rod didn’t notice. He wiped the blood out of his eyes.  Every second of their chase culminated in this moment. Each atom in his body was a bloodthirsty coliseum audience commanding an execution. He heard their cries and smiled; he would be their champion. 

Through the clearing was a vast field of thick, wet mud. In the center laid a towering moonlit boulder. The moon’s glow was a beam of heaven light, the boulder a beacon. There, wrapped in a celestial luminescence, Cassandra sat.  

Their eyes locked. “THE TEST IS OVER CASSANDRA. I AM YOUR TEACHER!”, Rod vowed, as a booming chorus sang a reprise that bounced off the trees. She did not flinch. The beam of light flashed into Rod's peripherals along with the sound of leaves being crunched under heavy weight.  

“This potter’s field is private property pal, reveal yourself now. I am armed.”, demanded an anonymous voice, ignored by Rod. He waded through the bubbling mud which became deeper with each step. Rod’s finger lingered on the trigger. Seconds stretched into an eternity as he approached her mountainous throne. Their gazes locked and drew them unavoidably closer like gravity to an asteroid entering orbit. 

Rod was suddenly struck with a shocking revelation. Closer than ever before, he discerned and analyzed a cascading series of horrible truths: Cassandra, the one who took everything away, was not a goose, but a gander. Rod's once precious student was no Cassandra, but actually a Jeremiah. Drowning floods of tears fell from Rod’s eyes. This was all a ploy to drag him away. Jeremiah had won. He was his flock’s lightning rod; a martyr to save the others. The physical embodiment of every life Rod took from them. A promise that he would never hunt again. He'd taught them too much. Nature was laughing at him. 

His precious golden revolver fell from his shaking hands, sinking into the deep mire. His heart dropped with it. It pounded its deafening drum, each note a begging plea. Rod plunged his arms into the cold and slimy void. 

Squelching footsteps advanced closer. “WHO’S THERE,” the voice ordered. Rod, with arms shoulder-deep in the mud, viciously clawed piles and piles which slowly seeped back to where they came from, erasing any progress.  

Finally, he felt the familiar metal chamber he knew so well, this time much colder. The gilded six shooter revealed itself to Rod as if recognizing its natural wielder. As he ripped it from the muddy grave, a piece of paint peeled off the barrel. Underneath the deceiving glistening façade was a brittle rusty skeleton. Its once-golden illusion never escaped the abyss beneath.  

The unknown figure trudged close behind with loud squelches before stopping a few feet away. Rod refused to turn. He raised the barrel to Jeremiah. The bird stared down defiantly into the gun's throat. “LAST CHANCE, WHO’S THERE”.  

The forest held its breath. Horrible symphonies shattered the silence of the night, as two gunshots announced themselves to the surrounding world. A corpse hit the mud, which embraced it.