The Goose Attack
Newsletter 2026-05-27
The thing about getting attacked by a goose is that everyone sides with the goose. I’m going to tell my side of the story anyway. If the goose doesn’t like it, that’s too bad. Geese aren’t protected by libel laws. They’re only protected by their scary, scary beaks.
Last Friday, I broke my personal vow to never, ever write about my day job. Now I’m doing it two Fridays in a row. Circumstances demand it. Seven days ago, I had to tell you about my coworker who got locked in a bathroom stall. That’s once-in-a-lifetime stuff. I’d violate any NDA on the planet to get that info out. Today, I have to share the tale of the one and only time I was assaulted by a wild animal. I’ll skip all the boring background lies about where I work. All that matters for the purposes of this story is that my job gives me a lunch break. It’s one of the few perks that capitalism hasn’t taken away yet. AI doesn’t need to eat, and employers know it. Like most normal people, I inhaled my food as fast as humanly possible and used the remaining time of my lunch break to work on my newsletter. My job provides a safe, private place for such endeavors. I should have known it was a trap.
My giant office building has a huge, protected courtyard that almost no one uses. Before the attack, I thought it was usually empty because office workers hate the sun. The harsh fluorescent lighting indoors has conditioned our bodies to reject natural UV rays. Our sad lives and sallow skin are the origin story for vampires. The relative isolation makes it the perfect place for me to pace back and forth talking to myself, allegedly so I can write on my phone using voice-to-text. If you wondered where the line is between creativity and insanity, there isn’t one. Nobody at work knows what I do on my own time, much like nobody who reads my writing knows what I do for work. They’re completely separate spheres of existence that are getting uncomfortably close together now that consecutive disasters have spanned the gap between the two. I made my way to the far side of the courtyard, away from the two small groups of people eating at picnic tables near the doors leading inside. In theory, the courtyard should have been one of the most secure places on earth. I was surrounded on all sides by forty-foot walls in a building with armed guards. I don’t work in a prison, but it’s hard to tell sometimes. The only way in or out was through the doors to the cafeteria, and the only way to get that far was to first clear security at the main entrance half a building away. The courtyard, which is roughly a hundred feet by a hundred feet, would be a great place to ride out the zombie apocalypse. But, like the Death Star, this impregnable fortress was built with a fatal flaw. In this case, the issue isn’t an exposed exhaust port, but a total lack of a roof.
Recently, a pair of geese took up residence on the far corner of the courtyard. They keep going back to the same area, so I suspect they have a nest. That prevents me from walking full laps on the sidewalk around the perimeter. Instead, I have to pace back and forth over the same section of sidewalk while I talk to myself, making me seem even stranger than normal. I thought I was avoiding the geese from an overabundance of caution. They look at me when I get close. I’ve never actually seen them attack anyone, but when they turn in my direction, I fear the worst. I assume the only thought in their tiny brains is, “Kill.” Of course, they think in their goose language, so it would be written out more like, “Honk, honk.” Either way, I know exactly what they mean, and so do they. There are zero misunderstandings between us. Yet not everyone treats them with such deference. There’s a guy who sits on a bench fairly close to the goose zone. The winged hell beasts leave him alone. Perhaps he has an inner goodness I lack, or, more likely, an inner evil they align with. If you want to spot the serial killer, find the guy who gets along with geese. Most days, I pace back and forth on whatever stretch of sidewalk is the farthest from the geese, the guy on the bench, and the people eating at picnic tables. It felt like I had to do a spatial math problem every time I went out there. No wonder most people stay inside.
Tuesday, I went outside at lunch to write. The courtyard was emptier than I’d ever seen it before. I thought people were afraid of potential rain. The sky was gray, but the temperature was perfect. Only two groups of employees were at picnic tables. No one was at the bench. Best of all, there were no geese. For the first time I could remember, I could walk around the far end of the perimeter without bothering any people or animals. It was going to be a good day.
I opened Google Docs and activated voice-to-text. I began my loop. Contrary to popular belief, I can walk and talk at the same time. The rest of this story proves that’s a lie. I focused on the words appearing on my screen. I wanted to tell the exciting story of going to my first ever Indy 500. At the top of my field of vision, I saw a flash of motion. I looked up from my phone.
The goose was already charging. Where did it come from?! There was no time to think. I ran.
The goose ran. I ran harder. It flew.
I fell. It swooped. I scrambled.
Seconds later, I was halfway across the courtyard, out of breath and with my heart thumping at a million beats per minute. The goose was back in its own territory in the corner, eyeing me malevolently. My brain tried to piece together what had happened. I had wiped out mostly on grass. My pants and shirt were muddy from where I landed on my side. My finger was bleeding. I guessed I had scraped it on the sidewalk. The goose hadn’t actually touched me. It spooked me into falling and hurting myself. It was just like those devil birds to let gravity do their dirty work. They had never come out that far from their corner before. Their zone of control had expanded. I didn’t get the memo, probably because the goose version of giving formal notice is just attacking people. The guy on the bench wasn’t there because the geese had finally killed and eaten him. I don’t have any proof of that, but Occam’s razor suggests it’s true.
The two groups at the picnic tables didn’t notice what happened. Someone walked out of the cafeteria and yelled to ask if I was okay. I yelled back that I was. They didn’t come over to investigate. I was not okay. I was equal parts embarrassed and angry. I’m not a stranger to fighting animals. I had an epic wrestling match with a hundred-pound potbelly pig with tusks in a jungle of a backyard. The difference there was that I expected a fight and was dressed accordingly. I wasn’t on a leisurely stroll in dress clothes on a brief break from my grown-up career. I couldn’t think of a single good thing that would come from either winning or losing a fight with a goose at work. Both outcomes seemed like they would get me fired. In my moment of panic, I had chosen flight. Unfortunately, the goose had chosen both flight and fight by divebombing me. It was the apex predator of the ground and the air.
As I composed myself, I discovered that voice-to-text had still been on during the attack. If you wondered what a goose assault looks like in written form, it’s this:
