A mallard duck paced cautiously a few meters away from a park bench, keeping its distance despite the wealth of bread crumbs scattered in the grass just beyond the compressed patch of dirt worn through the green by active feet. The grass still held the morning’s rain and the crumbs melded into the wet.
“Samurai swords?”
The mallard quacked.
“Yeah, it was weird. We were in this scary old mansion full of cobwebs and old paintings, but whenever I looked at the paintings they turned into people I knew.”
A man and woman sat on the park bench, close but not touching, a muddy puddle on in front of the bench caused them to sit with their feet pointing away from each other. It was overcast and a little cold, they were both bundled. He had an old wool knit cap, she had a scarf wrapped around her neck and occasionally flapped against her face in the wind.
“You two were alone?”
His left leg fidgeted incessantly, bouncing his knee up and down from the ball of his foot.
“Uh, yeah I guess. I mean, maybe not alone. Maybe you were there? It’s tough to say, you know how dreams are. You can’t always remember the whole thing.”
“Mmm. I’d remember if you were there.”
He cleared his throat. “Anyways, we kind of fought with them.”
“With what?”
“The samurai swords.”
“Like, actual fight?”
“Like, play fight, I think. But we were really swinging hard, and I was wearing shorts. By the end I was covered in cuts.”
Her toned changed to sarcastic. “Wait, in your dream you lost the fight?
He laughed defensively. “I don’t know who won, I just remember looking down at my shin and the bone was just sticking out.”
“Sounds like you lost.”
His brow furrowed before he could catch himself. “I mean, I guess so. But the weird thing is that it didn’t hurt.”
“So you were, what? In shock?”
“That’s what I said in the dream! I said I must be in shock. Or maybe samurai swords are just so sharp that you can’t feel when they cut you, like a razor blade you know?”
“I think I would know if someone cut my leg off.”
“Well, I did. But nobody was even paying attention!”
She looked out over the lake.
“Nobody? I thought you two were alone.”
“Well at some point Mike showed up too.”
“You remember Mike was there, but can’t remember if I was there.”
The duck pushed a pebble around the shoreline with his beak, picking it up and waddling a few steps before absentmindedly spitting it back out. It quacked.
“C’mon, it was a dream. Do you want me to stop talking about it?”
“Of course not, it’s fascinating. You should write a screenplay.”
He studied his hands.
She slapped weakly against his shoulder. “I’m kidding. What happened then?”
“Well then I kept asking them for help, a ride to the hospital or something but they just started walking.”
“You could still walk?”
“Not well, I could barely keep up. Mike helped a little, but we just kept going further and further.”
“Where were you walking to?”
“I didn’t even know, I was just following them. We went under an overpass, through some woods…”
“All the way to grandmother’s house?”
“Ha. No. It was a yoga studio we wound up at. But nobody was doing yoga, everyone was dancing.”
“Dance yoga? That might be a million dollar idea.”
“I couldn’t dance though, because of my leg.”
“Uh huh.”
“I finally freaked out. I yelled at her in front of everyone. I told her I needed to go to the hospital and I couldn’t believe she would hurt me like that and not care enough to help me.”
A second mallard swam up to the shoreline and took a couple steps out of the water, eyed the soggy crumbs, quacked at the first mallard, turned around and paddled away.
“And your bone is just hanging out the whole time.”
“My shin bone, yeah.”
“And then?”
“They all laughed. They laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing. She said, “You followed me all the way here, why don’t you take yourself to a hospital?”
“Damn. She had a point. So what’d you do?”
“I… took myself to the hospital.”
“Aw. Well that’s what you get.”
“For what?”
“For dreaming about her instead of me.”
He laughed without smiling for a moment, both of them staring out across the water.
The mallard turned its back on the bench and waded into the lake, paddling away and leaving a wake in the duckweed behind it.