I sat on the bench, watching the ducks sail serenely in pairs across the surface of the lake.<\/p>\n
He put his hand on my thigh, and whispered something in my ear. I laughed. The sound of it seemed disconnected from the world. On the lake, one of the ducks was pulled beneath the water, as a hint of something large rising and falling from the depths was obscured by the splash and commotion. As he tried to kiss me, I stood up and ran and did not look back. <\/p>\n
When I knocked on the door of my house ten minutes later, out of breath and close to tears, my mother answered, and, before I could cry, asked me where I had left my coat. I had to trudge back, red-faced, trepidatious. The bench was empty, the ducks had flown away. My jacket was draped over the side of a bin.<\/p>\n
I wished I could not be seen.<\/p>\n
__________<\/p>\n
Notes:<\/p>\n
1. Written on 15th August, 2019<\/em><\/p>\n__________<\/br> I sat on the bench, watching the ducks sail serenely in pairs across the surface of the lake. He put his hand on my thigh, and whispered something in my ear. I laughed. The sound of it seemed disconnected from the world. On the lake, one of the ducks was pulled beneath the water, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[727,728,726,162],"class_list":["post-2302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-short-story-or-two","tag-ducks","tag-fears","tag-kisses","tag-short-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2302"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2308,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302\/revisions\/2308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accumulationofthings.com\/things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Support An Accumulation Of Things<\/a><\/h3>If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon<\/a> or my ko-fi<\/a>. <\/br><\/br>Patreon subscribers<\/a> get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.<\/br><\/br>(Ko-fi contributors<\/a> probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). <\/br><\/br>Thank you!<\/i><\/br><\/br>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"