Still when you close your eyes you see the horror that unfolded that day.
Slick gobs of white sprinkled over wet cement and dew-kissed grass. Iron-grey feathers dashed with crimson falling unevenly to the ground. Screeching brakes and the low squeal of rubber being ground over asphalt.
Most of all, though, you remember the honking.
The human cries move forward from black recesses of your memory, then fall back beneath the onyx waves of the subconscious as a single sound overtakes them: honk.
A child, face streaked with blood, screams “Mommy! It bit me! My finguh mommy!” and fades into honk.
“Oh god, the guano! It’s everywhere! It’s inside me!” screams a man before he disappears into the miasma of honk.
A young mother, sheltering her baby amidst a pile of scattered groceries looks at the sky and asks “Why? What have we done to anger you, God? To incur such wrath?” She is answered only with honk.
The repairs cost millions, but were eventually completed. The clean-up was lengthy, but if you now walk the streets once stained with blood and covered in down you’d never know it happened.
The honking of the geese, however, will be with you forever.