The Sound of Seagulls

What happened? Well, that’s an interesting story. I suppose that’s what you’re here for, officer. Yes, I know it looks bad. It doesn’t feel too great either. If you want to investigate something, find out why these hospital beds are so uncomfortable, will you? I’m afraid that’s the only crime you’ll find in this room.

I know you’re here because it looks like I’ve been mugged and beaten by an angry mob. In a way, you could say that’s exactly what happened. But before you go out looking for someone to blame for my sorry state, let me tell you exactly where you can find the culprits. And let’s try to get this over with quickly, eh? I really am in quite a tremendous amount of pain.

As you know, yesterday was unusually beautiful weather for this time of year, and I thought I’d enjoy it by going out for a picnic on the beach. I had all the basic food groups covered: salt, fat, sugar, and nacho cheese. But obviously no picnic is complete without a really spectacular sandwich, and that caused a mild dilemma because I had to pick between a number of options. I wanted something special, so I dismissed the typical lunchmeat-and-lettuce option fairly quickly. Looking at the snacks I’d already packed, I wanted something with a different flavor profile, so I was juggling between egg salad and tuna. Finally I decided that being on the beach might make me want seafood, so I whipped up the most enchanting tuna sandwich you’ve ever seen in your life and I headed to the coast. I even used a hoagie, officer. This was a sandwich to end all sandwiches.

Anyway, the beaches were brimming with people, and I had to walk quite a long way to find a quiet spot. That was all right, I guess. If anyone had seen the sandwich I brought along, they would have fallen to their knees at its raw magnificence, and then you’d be investigating a very different situation today! As it was, the spot I found was near a large rocky area—you know the kind you find on the beach with all the little tide pools with barnacles and microscopic fish and who knows what other creatures in them. Yes, seashells too, of course.

So I was sitting on my towel on the beach and I had my picnic basket and I opened it up. Are you the kind of guy who saves the best for last, officer? Well, that’s you then, because as soon as I plopped myself down I dug in that basket for that glorious sandwich. I had been thinking of it since I left my house. It was the kind of sandwich that lingers in the mind.

I thought I was alone that day. I truly did. I thought I was safe from causing religion-ending devastation with my godlike sandwich. But I had forgotten to take one thing into account, and it could all have been avoided had I chosen egg salad instead.

As soon as I pulled out that sandwich, the eerie drumbeats of my fate began. I had not noticed before, but as I was walking along the beach trying to find a spot to sit, a nightmare was softly watching. Now, with my sandwich nakedly exposed, my stalkers made themselves known, first with a single caw, and then another, until a cacophony split the night—all right, yes, day—and echoed through my veins.

But I was selfish, officer. I was not willing to let go of my resplendent sandwich, even to the beach’s own demon hordes. And so I left my basket and I ran, sandwich in hand, across sand and stone and into a small cavern in the cliff, where I huddled, tremulous with restless angst. Through the slender crack of the rock I saw a dreadful shadow extend until there was merely a halo of light left to touch the ground. My heart nearly stopped as the chilling refrain of their dissonance ensued.

I would have been just fine waiting there until nightfall, when hopefully the horrible throngs would return to whatever hellish portal they spawned from, but the beach there is narrow, and wouldn’t you know it? The tide was coming in.

I had but one choice.

Screeching like a banshee in hope that the swarm would take me for one of their own satanic brethren, I tucked my sandwich under my arm like a delectable football and sprinted from my stony refuge. In the naked light, I saw ten thousand winged fiends, maybe more, whirling like a mighty storm above my head. Beady eyes glowed as their widened beaks swept toward me in a dark typhoon. The horrible din of the bedlam was as the sound of a million tortured souls in hell. Even the crash of the waves was drowned in the clamorous crack of violence.

I am not ashamed to say, officer, that in that moment, I lost my composure.

The speed at which I dashed could have put the greatest Olympic sprinters to shame, but it was not enough. You can see for yourself the damage I weathered before I finally found in myself the courage to let go of that which I loved most. My stomach groans at the sacrifice of that savory sandwich, but if I hadn’t released it to the maws of those devilish hunters, I would have lost much more than my lunch.

If you are looking for someone to punish, officer, I only ask that you dare look beyond your own species. The horrors produced by humanity are clear, but no one dares question the viciousness of seagulls, who appear harmless at first glance but grow like a cancer. Hear my words, officer, and pay heed.

All right, fine, so I might have enticed them by making a fish-based sandwich. But I’m gonna need a lot of therapy after this, and these medical bills ain’t cheap. Can you blame me for wanting a little revenge?

Send in the nurse as you leave, will you? I cannot stress enough how much I need my morphine increased.