The Beach

∨ The Beach ∧

14

A Safe Bet

I wouldn’t call it a dream. Nothing with Mister Duck was like a dream. In this case, it was ‘more like a movie. Or news footage, swaying on a hand-held camera.

Mister Duck was sprinting towards me across the embassy lawn, his wrists still freshly slit, blood looping out from the cuts as he pumped his arms. I was reeling from the noise of the screaming crowds and helicopters, watching a snowfall of shredded files. Classified snow, swirling in the backdraft from the rotor blades, settling on the manicured grass.

‘Born twenty years too late?’ shouted Mister Duck, belting past me and flipping into a cartwheel. ‘Fuck that!’ His blood echoed the movement, briefly hanging in the air like the trace from a firework.

‘See up there!’

I looked where he pointed. A hovering insect shape was lifting off the roof, with people clinging to the landing skids. It dipped as it pulled away, struggling with the heavy load, and clipped a tree outside the embassy walls.

I shouted with excitement.

‘That’s the boy!’ Mister Duck yelled, ruffling my hair with a wet hand, soaking the collar of my shirt. ‘That’s the kid!’

‘Do we get to escape from the embassy roof?’ I yelled back. ‘I always wanted to do that!’

‘Escape from the embassy roof?’

‘Do we get to?’

‘You bet,’ he laughed. ‘You fucking bet.’