John was walking down a beach of soft, white sand, the warm breeze caressing his face. A warm breeze that smelled distinctly of fish. Old fish. And he became aware of pressure on his chest. Something was not right.
He groaned.
“Oh good, you didn’t die. Would have had a bit of trouble explaining that one.”
John opened his eyes … and found himself looking a pelican squarely in the eyes. Or one eye, as the pelican standing on his chest had his head cocked. It still freaked John out none the less.
He scrambled backwards, sending the pelican tumbling to the dock.
“Hey, watch it buddy! I just saved your life! Beak to mouth resuscitation is not as as easy as you would think.”
John froze in mid scramble. It hadn’t been some heat stroke hallucination after all. There was a pelican talking to him.
“What … what do you want?!?”
“I just wanted to catch my lunch and have a relaxing afternoon, but you blew that all to hell with your noise and passing out. The fish scattered but good when you hit the dock.”
“B…but what do you want from me?”
“From you? Nothing. Unless you got some fish on you. I mean, you cost me my lunch, it would be only fitting that you provide a replacement.”
John slowly stood up. And realized he was tasting old fish. He fell back to his knees and vomited off the edge of the dock.
“Chumming the water won’t do you any good. The fish are long gone, man. Give it an hour or so and give it another try.”
“I’m not chumming the <retch> water. I have this taste of <hurl> rotten fish in my <gag> mouth.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Had to get the beak in there to make sure the your airway was clear and I lost some of the snack I was saving for later. Maybe you should drink some water or something.”
John reached over to his bag between stomach convulsions and dug out the water bottle. Two minutes, most of his water and four sticks of gum later, most of the rotten fish flavor was gone and his stomach stopped trying to escape his body.
“Feeling better?”
“Yeah, a bit I guess.”
“Good, now about lunch. How about your treat at the Casa del Sol?”
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OK, so this is the first riff built off another riff. There were two reasons for that. First, the previous riff felt like an intro.
Second, I have a few pelican pictures and after the previous riff, the image of the pelican eye seemed to scream for attention. Thankfully it did not literally scream for attention as that would have been rather disconcerting.