Yseult had feared seagulls for most of her life. That fear ingrained within her from an early age when, on a school field trip to Brighton Palace Pier, a merciless little bugger wouldn’t cease to leave her alone until she unhanded the remaining half of her sandwich, nearly taking her hand off in the process. The teacher, Mrs. Millner, had gone about advising Yseult all wrong. Telling her things like, “Hold yer ground!” and “Just turn away and ee’ll stop botherin’ you luv!” None of those “instructions” were valid at all. And by the time Yseult, at just seven years old, realized that Mrs. Millner, the so-called adult, had no idea what the fuck she was talking about, it was too late. The gull was going for her roast beef and watercress sandwich at full tilt. Ravaging her lunch with all the abandon of Russell Brand at an after-party (in Hollywood or otherwise). By the time Mrs. Millner thought to intervene (though only by calling for help from some nearby man who didn’t even work on the premises), the gull had not only swallowed her entire sandwich whole (as is the toothless way of birds), but also managed to peck her index and middle fingers to the point of skin-breaking bloodiness.

When Yseult was returned to her parents that day, they immediately took her to the hospital (appalled that they had to be the ones to do so when they felt that Yseult should have been rushed there immediately to be evaluated for potential hazards like tetanus and psittacosis). The negligence of Mrs. Millner in truly caring for her “charge” in this scenario led to her dismissal soon after. And, because, for whatever reason, Mrs. Millner was so well-liked by her students and co-workers, it resulted in Yseult being relentlessly bullied or just plain ostracized for the rest of her primary school stint. Something she never brought up to her parents lest they actually confront the principal about it. Instead, she took the lashings, much as she took the ones of the seagull. To not take them would only result in her being deemed all the more “soft.” As she was for not just “brushing it off” after getting attacked by a gull.

Although the incident had been many years ago now, it didn’t ever really “leave” Yseult, who made it her mission in life to avoid birds—and especially seagulls—at all costs. For her, that meant leaving the UK entirely. And avoiding any coastal area, for that matter. That’s how she found herself living in landlocked Luxembourg, where she had taken on a job as a translator (specializing in French to English) for the European Parliament. While seagulls technically could still get to Luxembourg, she didn’t often see one, and it made her feel safe. Allowed her to forget that early trauma that had cast such a dark pall over the rest of her childhood. In fact, she had so scarcely ever seen any feathered “friends” except for sparrows and blackbirds in Luxembourg that she almost forgot entirely that gulls still existed. Until one fateful and horrible day when she decided to grab a pâté and crudités sandwich from Pâtisserie Hoffmann before taking it to the Kaltreis Park that she occasionally liked to sit in when it wasn’t particularly crowded or chock-full of children. Granted, that was a rarity, but on this day, she was willing to chance it. If the clientele wasn’t to her liking, she could easily walk back to her house on Rue Albert Steffen, a stone’s throw from the park.

When she located one of the few off-the-beaten-path benches she liked to sit on so she could watch people pass by (usually with their dogs, for there was also a dog park nearby), she found that it was rather empty in Kaltreis indeed. A pleasant surprise that she was eager to take advantage of. That is, until about halfway into eating her pâté and crudités sandwich, when she heard that chilling sound. A sound she had buried deep within herself so as to forget it ever existed after hearing it as an unwanted auditory flashback on most nights following the attack at Brighton Palace Pier. But this was no flashback—the sound was right here, right now. And the culprit was, of course, none other than a dreaded seagull. The very creature she had defected to Luxembourg to escape almost fifteen years ago now.

And in those fifteen years, she had never had any “close encounters” with a seagull. Sure, they were still “around” in that there were bodies of water like the Alzette and the Moselle running through the city. But, compared to Brighton, the presence of the gulls might as well have been nonexistent. Until this very moment when the seagull approaching her, oh so cautiously at first, made it clear that he had the same kind of designs on her sandwich as the one in Brighton. For all she knew, maybe they were related. It certainly couldn’t have been the same one since, last Yseult knew, the average gull’s lifespan was about fifteen years (just one of many “fun facts” she had picked up after doing a deep dive [no pun intended] into all things seagull during her teenage years, when she finally wanted to understand more about what had happened to her and why).

Whoever’s “relative” this seagull was, it didn’t much matter. As far as Yseult was concerned, they were all the same: aggressive, merciless and murderous when it came to food. Clamming up as the seagull drew even nearer to her bench and stood there, just staring and waiting, Yseult put her hands over the sandwich, hoping against hope that such a maneuver would somehow make it believe there was nothing really there. But there was no “pulling a fast one” on a seagull. Not with its razor-sharp eyesight and sense of smell (another element that set it apart from most birds). Still, it was as if Yseult was frozen, unable to move a muscle lest that goddamn gull get any closer. Indeed, she sat there, unmoving, for at least a full five minutes in what amounted to a standoff. Of course, she was well-aware that the only one who could win that standoff was the seagull.

This became very apparent to her after, upon moving ever so slightly, several crudités fell out of her sandwich, unleashing a tomato and a cucumber to the ground. Which was all it took to get the seagull even more gassed up, hopping back and forth and squawking with impatience, wondering to itself, Yseult imagined, When the fuck is this bitch gonna get up and leave behind her scraps so I can go to town on them in peace? Well, if that was his thought, Yseult had to admit it was certainly more “generous” than whatever the Brighton gull had been thinking.

Trying to “self-soothe,” Yseult decided it was time to just get up and leave. She didn’t have to be a prisoner to this gull—or any other—anymore. She could walk away and keep living her life. Hell, she could even move away from landlocked Luxembourg if she wanted (though of course she knew the possibility of that actually happening was rather slim…or was it?). Fortifying her resolve with these “mantras,” Yseult rose with abrupt force from the bench, prompting still more tomatoes and cucumbers to fall out of the sandwich that had become quite messy (to be fair, Yseult could turn even the most minimal of sandwiches, with the scantest amount of ingredients, into a mess).

But oddly, it was the fallen piece of cucumber that the gull was most interested in. It didn’t give a fuck about the tomato. And, because Yseult had once again frozen up where she stood, the seagull felt that she was maliciously hindering him from collecting his “rightful” bounty. That’s when, just as before, things started to get ugly. The seagull lost all patience with Yseult’s neurotic behavior and started pecking violently at her feet to get to the cucumber. She should have run; something inside her knew that. Alas, her stress response had always been “freeze” rather than fight, or even flight (that was for the birds). So she just continued to stand there while the gull brutalized her feet to the point where it managed to penetrate the leather of her black ankle boots, eking out the cucumber in the end.

Yseult couldn’t remember what happened afterward. It was like she had gone into a trance once the seagull got violent. All she knew was that she “came to” in a hospital bed, having been taken there by one of those people who walked their dog along the path (her entire reason for enjoying sitting on that bench) and saw her being, for all intents and purposes, savaged by a seagull. As the doctor asked her some routine questions and explained to her that she would need a few skin grafts, Yseult once again floated out of her body, higher and higher—almost to the heights of a seagull. Her only focus now being to find a new place to live. An environment that surely and absolutely must be free of seagulls. She had heard that most atolls and islands in tropical climates didn’t have any. The move to such a location would be difficult and isolating, sure, but she had also often heard that warm climates could do wonders for “healing.” She just hoped that meant emotionally in addition to physically.