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The hunter gets it in the shoulder. Clean shot straight through, but no one around but a duck. The hunter feels the rush of leaking blood staining his quilted vest. The red wound soaking through and widening, widening. The duck a likely suspect after the hunter wiped out the duck’s quacky family. But how, the hunter wonders. Gunless, armless, and the tiny duck head doesn’t seem big enough to hold thoughts of revenge. The hunter’s face is turning blue and no one to call for help. Too far into the forest for phone bars, the duck is all he has. But the duck would have to swim out of the shadow of the willow tree that is dipping into the pond, follow the trail out of here and remember the exact spot where he left the hunter. Not easy for a duck, the hunter thinks. And then, too, the duck would have to tell the authorities exactly what happened, even if only in quacks. Even harder is that the duck’s only alibi (no obvious way to hold a rifle) would be far outweighed by motive, and would, therefore, be unlikely to stick.
About Francine Witte
Francine Witte’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Mid-American Review, and Passages North. Her latest books are Dressed All Wrong for This (Blue Light Press,) The Way of the Wind (AdHoc fiction,) and The Theory of Flesh (Kelsay Books) She is flash fiction editor for Flash Boulevard and The South Florida Poetry Journal. Her chapbook, The Cake, The Smoke, The Moon (flash fiction) was published by ELJ Editions in September, 2021. She lives in NYC.
