One Duck
('Birds of a Feather')
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born; and what my lousy childhood was like, and how all my egg-mates were eaten by foxes, but I don't feel like going into it. Suffice to say I live here for half the year and the other back in New York. The pond there isn't so bad, more of a lagoon really and there is this old guy that used to come by every afternoon and feed us fancy crumbs. He stopped coming though, then a month or so later, just before I left I guess, he comes back just that once, he's looking a little crumby himself, and he says good-bye. That's it, he mentions that no one will tell him where we go in the winter and he leaves. I wonder if the old guy will come back to his bench when we return. The others refuse to discuss it, they all turn their backs as one and it kills me, they look like carbon copies standing in a mirror. If there's one thing I hate, it's them all acting in sync. Don't even mention it to me.
I guess I want to start the day after Old Guy said good-bye. I was minding the little ducks and one of them wandered off. It's near impossible to watch them all at once and I had sat down in the grass for one moment to rest my weary legs when they all start chirping at me. It turned out old Page had spotted a lolly wrapper caught in the wind and had gone to chase it down. Old Page would have to be the fastest duckling this side of Central Park, you can't stop her when she gets going and trying to catch her is like trying to take on a fox; you can't win.
Anyway, I couldn't just leave the remaining kids on their own, so I called over old Apple-berry, a true phoney if ever there was one, but he would keep them safe for the time being.
I started going through all the bushes round the lake, calling out old Page's name and after a wading through a few rushes I started imagining I was a part of a guerrilla strike force, I had been separated from the rest and had been shot in the gut. I've got my wing over my gut and I'm stumbling all over the place, smashing the hell out of the goddam reeds, when I spot a glinter out the corner of my eye. It doesn't move when I swivel my head to at it, it just stays there catching the sun and I stare at it like a madman.
"Harry?" It's old Page, hushing me when I start to have a go at her for running off, its then I notice that the wrapper, that's what was glittering, is caught just over a break in the reeds. This is what Page was interested in, because sitting together are the mindless elders. The elders are goddam phoneys; each and every one of them, they can't have an original thought between them, it's all "Swim in a strait line" and "Keep your feathers clean" with them. Goddam morons the lot of them.
I start to ask old Page why we're crouched in the rushes, freezing our tail-feathers off, when she hushes me again and motions for me to listen to the old phoneys.
"We have to leave soon," the crumbiest one states.
"But what of the younglings? They are not ready to fly yet, if we were to leave now they would die." I give old Page a startled look at this; they're talking about the migration. According to Apple-berry we're supposed to have left a week or so ago yet old Page and the rest of the younglings hatched later in the season, so while I came into this world early in the season and so I'm nearly fully grown, old Page is only a couple of weeks old.
"If we don't go in the next couple of days we all die. It is becoming colder by the day and food is scarce. We will not lose all of this year's hatchlings, there is still Harry, and he will be ready to fly when we leave. All is not lost."
This next bit I don't remember so hot. All I know is I left the rushes and tried to peck the one that had last spoken, right in the bill. Only I missed. I didn't connect. All I did was sort of trip over my feet, real graceful like. "Ya phoney crum-bums." I'm not just about to sit by while they condemn old Page to death. " There's no way you can just up and leave the ducklings to fend for themselves. It would be Lord of the Flies all over again, ya morons."
"Now Harry, just relax, we are not going to let any one die, migration is a difficult undertaking. Not something to take lightly."
"We heard ya, ya goddam morons. You're just going to drag me off and leave the other little ones to rot."
"Now Harry they would never make the trip."
"And why not?, That's just the trouble with all you morons. You never want to discuss anything with them involved. That's the way you can always tell a moron. They never want to discuss anything intellig-" The first duck that had spoken sat on me.
"Tell me Harry, where are the little ones? Were you not watching over them?"
"Yeah but old Page wandered off. Apple-berry is watching the others."
"So is Page here?" He looked to me for confirmation and I nodded. "Little one come out where we can see you."
Old Page waddles out and the elder on top of me gets off and kneels down to look her in the eye. "No one is going to let you die little one, all us elders are trying to find a way to have you up and flying in no time." That killed me, it would have to be the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard, but he turns to me anyway and says, "Now run along, try and get some flying practice in when you get a chance."
We got out after that and made our way back to the other younglings who were shooting the bull with old Apple-berry, however once we were in sight the ducklings took to shouting questions at old Page. That depressed the hell out of me, it really did. With all my egg mates being eaten by foxes before they hatched, scenes like this didn't happen 'till old Page came along.
"Hey Apple-berry," he's a year older than me and has been on a migration before, so I can talk to him about it with out the belittlement the elders would give me.
"What's up pig-face?" Well maybe not as much.
"How long are we on migration for? And how far is it? Will it be a hard slog, cos if it is I'm not sure I want to go."
"Right, typical Harry conversation. Listen up, it's not that bad and if you don't go you're likely to freeze here. If you like, me and a few friends are going for a flap round the park tomorrow, stretch our wings see, and you're welcome to join us."
"Gee, thanks a million." And that's how I found myself making endless circles around the park following the flock of bigger birds the next day.
They were working on their V formation, all in sync, with me tacked on the end, roaming between the two sides of the formation. I got many glares from old Apple-berry because he was the one that invited me to join in and I was making him look bad in front of his clones. And it really was like they were mirror images of each other, the way they all knew when the duck at the front was going in for a turn or how they all spiraled as one, it goddam killed me, it did. Anyway after an hour of this I got the hell out of there without a backwards glance to see if any of them saw me leave, not that I cared. I'd had enough of all twenty-something of them acting as one, boy was I spooked, I really was.
Anyway after that I went looking for old Page to shoot the bull with but I was besieged by the elders before I found her. I was surrounded and forced to land just out of waddling distance of the lake, so no calvary to my rescue. Boy was I in for it.
"Now look here Harry. You cannot just go about in a half-daze when it comes to formation practice, you are liable to be shot when we begin the real migration."
"Yes, you risk all our lives."
"Now get back up there, we should not be able to spot which duck is you by the time we leave tomorrow."
"But what about the younglings for chrissake? They'd die without us."
"You must learn young Harry that the flock comes before the individual and that we would all die if we stay. Sacrifices must be made to insure the safety of the flock as a whole."
"We leave at dawn, be ready or stay behind." Then all the sonovabitches took off together to meet up with Apple-berry's faction. All those lousy crum-bums, good-for-nothing mongrels the lot of 'em. Just when you think you've figured out the world they rip it away from you. Boy if they're not careful I'd tie a duckling to each of them and see if they can still go. I was in a right mood, I really was.
In the end I didn't find old Page and that night I found my own patch of grass, as far away from any other goddam duck as I could be. Boy all I could think were madman thoughts about how I was going to convince the phoneys that the younglings needed to stay with the flock. It was one hellava night, with no sleep and no answers I turned up at the take-off point with no real plan as to save the younglings.
With the lack of sleep behind me, my brain was shot. Yammering like a madman Apple-berry was mobilizing his troops into takeoff formation and somehow I managed to be caught up in it all. I'd hardly had a look round to see who was there when we were suddenly in the air. I goddam nearly fell out of the sky then when I realized what the elders had done. Boy were they going to find a whole new meaning to pain when I broke free. They had left the young ones behind and had me surrounded by Apple-berry's faction. The power of the flock had destroyed my decision to help the younglings and it killed me to watch their trembling faces turn into blurs then nothing.
That's all I'm going to tell about. I could probably tell about how I tried getting back there when ever we landed and all but I don't feel like it. I really don't. It still depresses the hell out of me to think that I might never see old Page's face again. I like to think that the old guy will be there feeding the younglings while we're away, Apple-berry says he is there all the time, but who would feed an empty lagoon when there's no ducks?
Anyway the elders sat me down one night and asked me what I thought about all this stuff I just finished telling you about. I didn't know what the hell to say. So I just sat there nodding and telling them what they wanted to hear. I go through the formations with Apple-berry most days; it's easier to stick with the flock. If you don't, you start missing everybody.