He couldn’t see a way to win this fight, so he needed to escape this madness. Luckily, he saw the tray hurtling towards him before it actually hit him.
A quick Mana Lash allowed him to redirect it to his forearm, the tether coiled tight to make a makeshift plastic shield. It was the equivalence of duct taping it to his arm. Red Green would’ve been proud, and could hear him say, “If the ladies don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy,” in the back of his head.
A glob of pudding came rocketing towards him, the plastic cup outpaced by the chocolate ooze that used to be its contents. Remi raised his arm, causing it to splat harmlessly against his plastic buckler. Before he needed to test it out against something hard, he backed towards the cafeteria’s entrance. Blocking and dodging one projectile after another. A juice box. A stray meatball, no longer on top of old spaghetti, but still shockingly covered with cheese. Even a half-eaten bean burrito arrowed towards Remi. It too, met the fate of the others, splattered like a bug against Remi’s trash shield.
With each step, with each careful step, he retreated, until he found himself in the main hallway. A few more steps backwards and the intersecting hallway was at his right shoulder. The food’s fury eased out here, and so, taking the opportunity, he turned and ran. Breathing hard, he reached the door to the kitchen. Remi yanked it open, bolted through, and slammed it shut behind him. He paused and caught his breath in the small moment of silence.
In front of him were cool metal counters, gleaming with their cleanliness. There were pots hanging from the roof, and knives stuck to magnets on the wall, neither of which, thankfully, moved. That would've been a nightmare. Finally sanctuary.
Then he heard and saw it. A hot dog came through the open serving window that connected to the cafeteria, flying as if it had been tossed underhand at a slow-pitch game. An elegant arc in front of him, that ended with the wiener inside the kitchen’s garbage can. Not all the food that flew through the portal was quite so accurate, splattering against the cabinets and counters, unable to turn fast enough to reach Remi. Some of it was contained, but a lot of it was not.
He rushed forward and grabbed the bin. He tossed it through the window and into the cafeteria. The food stopped flying into the kitchen, and the chaos outside resumed its cyclonic path. Remi’s sigh was audible. Suddenly, there was no more movement. No projectiles. No sound, apart for the faint, wet plop of cafeteria messes hitting tiles beyond the window.
“Defenestration for the win!”
Remi was triumphant, standing at last in the kitchen’s stillness: the cool metal counters, the pots hanging motionless from the ceiling, and the knives resting obediently against their magnetic strip. The dustpan, mop, brooms, and bucket across the room from him rested underneath a golden clipboard. It was too far to read the clipboard’s contents from here, but even at this distance it looked official. He was relieved that none of it moved.
He took a step forward, intending to push the button that would lower the window’s garage door. He was halfway there when something under his foot shook. A piece of wilted lettuce trapped under his shoe rustled. That was when he heard the squeaking of wheels, as the mop bucket started to move on its own, rolling towards the mess on the floor. The broom turned, and the dustpan rattled. They weren’t attacking; they were cleaning, and Remi was now in the way.
The mop struck first, having left its bucket to slap across the tiles like an inverted jellyfish puppet on a stick. Its thick grey yarn slurped along the floor at an unnatural speed. It was like the Sorceror’s Apprentice, except that none of this was whimsical, and the handle didn't swing at the apprentice’s head like it was a sword. Not to mention, Remi didn’t even have a hat. Remi parried the wooden blade with his own, a sideways block, and the room filled with a sharp CLACK! The handle struck again, but Remi met it with an overhand flick. CLACK! They duelled like this for a few more exchanges, until a right slash enabled him to dance to the side, and proceed past it. No longer an impediment, the mop ignored Remi and proceeded towards its cleaning duties.
He ducked as the dustpan followed. The plastic shield deflected the flying dustpan as it spun through the air like a plastic boomerang. Crikey. And the mop bucket met his outstretched foot, easily toppled to spill its contents on the floor.
Then came the brooms, sweeping in from opposite sides, their handles clicking like claves in a rhythm that drove him a step backward towards the wall. Bosa-Hell-No-va! He stepped back forward, blocked one broom with his makeshift shield, swatted the other with the meter stick, and sprinted between them like they were the markers at the end of a long race.
And behind them all, the clipboard glowed faintly. It was mounted on the back wall by the sink. Remi didn't know how he knew, but he sensed it was the quiet general. The entire cleaning crew took their commands from its golden face. Fuck, he hated lists. Remi closed the distance to the clipboard as quickly as he could. He didn't want to risk the cleaning tools circling back around. When he got to the wall, Remi pulled it to him, and gave it a quick glance. It appeared to be a standard cleaning form: Employee’s Name, Date, Time, and an empty checkbox under the Done column.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Remi understood what came next. He got out his pen and wrote his name. He filled in the word Today for the date and Lunchtime for the time in the next two columns, having no better alternative. The mop froze and dropped with a clatter to the ground. The brooms toppled with a clickity clack right after. Remi leaned his stick against the wall and pressed the close-door button for the window.
“Lunch service is over,” he yelled as the metal segments dropped. He walked over, bent down, and picked up a broom, because Remi had some cleaning to do.
It didn't take that long, really. He had some practice, having worked at a sandwich shop in university, and really this mess was nothing compared to the main cafeteria. So, he swept and mopped. There was a rag and some cleaner under the sink, which he used to wipe down all surfaces. It took maybe fifteen minutes. Most of his remaining lunch hour. When finished, he checked off done, and the room seemed to sigh with satisfaction. As he prepared to leave, with his items required, his old tray shield safely returned to the stack, he looked back at the kitchen, once again clean and sparkling, like nothing had happened.
He killed the lights, preparing to leave. For a heartbeat everything was pitch black. But just before he turned to open the door to exit, he saw the thin line of light stretched from the far wall and pooled out from beneath the stove. It was a contrast to the stark blackness that surrounded it. The thread of light flickered along the tile floor; it was tender and beckoned him back.
Maybe he’d missed something. If he’d left the oven on, that would be a problem. Remi frowned and crossed the tile floor. The last thing he needed was to worry about a gas explosion.
He felt the oven, but it was cold. Was it a faulty pilot light? Unsure, he crouched in the warm pool of light. Still unable to see, he pressed his body to the floor and looked underneath. What he saw shocked him. It wasn't the flickering flame he expected, but a nest, wedged beneath the stove. An awkward, twiggy structure made of straws and wrappers, scraps of paper, and even a disposable cold cut package. It was most definitely a nest, which was made even more apparent by the large egg that rested in its centre.
Its shell was grey-white. Like the colour of old chalk on a student’s slate. It was less of an oval shape, and more of a teardrop, as if a single drop had fallen from heaven to land here in egg form. The surface looked delicate, like cracked china fused to crumbling stone. The hairline cracks ran along the surface in spirals. Tiny ammonite fossil patterns that curled inwards. As Remi looked at the egg closer, he noticed light feather filaments as well. Long, silver, and embedded just under the shell’s surface. Something else to join the petrified pattern. It was an object of contradictions, both apparently hard and soft, both solid and delicate.
Remi stared at it for a long time. There was nothing else here. No evidence of a mother. There were no actual feathers; in fact, the egg itself was covered in a thin layer of dust. Nobody or nothing had been to visit this egg in quite some time. He knew he shouldn’t touch it. But then it moved, and the memory came flooding back.
Remi hadn’t wanted the ducks. That part was important. The memory didn’t start with feathers or joy, but with resistance; with him, it was reflexive and habitual. He’d said no the first time his girlfriend had brought it up, his voice tinged with pre-emptive protest, but she had her voice too, that knowing voice. The kind that wrapped inevitability in calm.
By the third ask, he would always give in with a joke. “I guess we’re getting ducks,” he’d said, half-laughing.
“I’m glad you agree,” she replied. “They’re in the car.”
That was the moment he realized just how much came with them. A heat lamp. A converted large plastic tub. Hay. So much hay. They were in the back seat, huddled like secrets wrapped in fluff instead of feathers—“like fluff stuck to their bodies with glue,” he’d said. They weren’t ducks in his mind. They were just so tiny. No bigger than his hand. But even then, the part of him he preferred to hide cracked open despite himself, stirring in response to minuscule cheeps.
They needed protecting.
He brought them inside and gave them fresh water. They swam in it immediately. They were so clumsy and joyful and stupid. They were just so excited about everything. Who needs water to drink when it feels so good to sit in? He got them more water. Again—duck butts in water. So he fetched a Rubbermaid bin from the basement, filled it slowly, carefully, and placed them in one by one. They didn’t know how to swim yet, so he’d have to teach them.
Small amounts of water. At first, just enough to cover their feet. Then a little more. Then out for a rest. Then repeat. A little more each time. “You can do it, duckies!” He knew they couldn’t understand him, but hoped they’d recognize the encouragement.
And eventually, they learned. How to paddle. How to dive, just a bit, in the end. He watched them figure it out with wonder, still calling them stupid, but smiling as he said it.
They moved like a single creature, not three. “There weren’t three,” he remembered. “They were like one. Inseparable.” And so, he protected them as one. At night, he built them a little tent to trap the heat. His house could get cold, and he didn’t want that for them.
Everyone else was asleep. He thought he was alone.
He named them: Sir Ducken, YoLow, Rorshack. Quietly, only to them. And that night, he tucked them in, murmured goodnight, and because he thought no one could hear, sang them a lullaby. It was mostly Swinging on a Star, but it starred the ducks. It was something he used to do with Bea. She would call out a random animal as he sang the song, and Remi would improvise words for the animal.
But someone did hear.
He felt a little stupid when found out; he got teased a bit. But he didn’t regret it. “I own what I am,” he said. He didn’t mind being soft. He just didn’t enjoy being seen in it. Not because it wasn’t real—but because it was. When the break ended and he packed them back up in the car, he was sad to leave them. They had all had each other. In this small tub, in this small home. But the farm they were returning to was big. Life has a way of separating this kind of closeness.
He was also sad for himself. His house would be so quiet. No more splashing, no more cheeping, and no more duck lullabies.
“…a duck is an animal that swims in its bowl; it sleeps, tucked in its folds.”
Remi couldn't leave it sitting here all alone. He reached forward and carefully extracted the egg. As he brought it to his chest, he could see that the egg mysteriously cast two shadows. As he held it close, he thought he heard a high-pitched whisper. Unintelligible, but laced with urgency. Stop making things up. It would be impossible for anything in it to survive in this place all alone. Regardless, he cupped it gently as he settled it into the bottom of his shopping bag. He nestled it against his side, close and warm, his imitation of a mother’s pouch.