Coyotes, Pelicans, & Prisoners

by Guy Biederman

Neighbors report that a coyote with a mangled leg, hiding in the shrubbery of your complex, growled at a sizeable man who was headed for his Tacoma in the parking lot. From your third-floor unit, you look out at the hills still green in late summer and the busy four lane highway the coyote must’ve have crossed to wind up here. One neighbor walks her leashed dingo towards the shrubbery carrying a knife, another calls the Sheriff saying it should be shot, and a third phones Animal Control insisting the coyote is healing — and residents should just keep all cats and small dogs inside until it leaves. You flip the channel on TV—tune into a local manhunt for an escaped prisoner with a gun. Out the big window, a V-shaped squadron of pelicans flies east. You climb to the roof and make a V with your arms like you did as a kid when wings were sometimes called for, when the line between real and pretend was just beginning to be drawn, when you pondered but-not-for-long your next move.

6S

Guy Biederman's most recent collection, Translated From the Original: One-Inch Punch Fiction is available from Black Lawrence Press. He lives, writes, and floats on a houseboat in Sausalito with his wife and tuxedo cat and walks the planks daily.