A Picture of a Goose

A Picture of a Goose

Last year, I was walking along the pond across the street. I’ve lived here for years but didn’t walk there often. There were always people, fishing, boating, walking. I’m not much of a people person so I’d did my daily walks on the country roads instead. But some days, I did walk there, around the pond. One day, in early spring, last year, I went there.

I always brought my camera. I like to take pictures, of birds or animals, then I go home and look them up.

Suddenly I saw a duck, goose? out on the water. It was white and gray, not too large, I’d never seen one like it before. I whipped out my camera to catch it before it flew off. As I pulled my camera out of my pocket my hand caught the edge of my pocket and then popped out. The camera went flying, the goose saw it, flew off, and my camera landed in wet weeds. I rushed home, taking it straight to the camera shop to make sure it wasn’t ruined.

It was fine, they even printed all my pictures just to make sure. The last one a bit of a mystery.

I could see the pond and what I had thought was a goose, but the goose had the face of a startled human, and the ends of its wings were showing fingers. As I watched, the picture faded all to white.

I haven’t gone back since. I sit in my upstairs window every day with binoculars, watching for that goose to come back. I refuse to leave till I see it again. My family is worried, trying to send me to a “home.” I keep telling them, I’m fine, I just have to take another picture of that goose.