The villagers of that little town nestled in the heart of old Germany wondered about the young girl who would be seen fetching ink and paper at the shop on the corner. It was a curious fact that she wasn't enrolled in the school for the arts; the ballet students would whisper in envy as she gilded by on long, graceful legs. Black hair framed her face in shiny layers, though there was always one bit on the top of her head that refused to lay flat. Her eyes were an enigmatic blue-green that seemed to shift hues in every light. Her gentle smile and porcelain complexion were enough to bring a blush to the cheek of all the young boys who happened to hold the door for her at the shop, shaking off her thanks with an awkward stutter. The girl would giggle under her breath and hurry back to her home, a tiny cottage in the forest on the outskirts of the town, and deliver the ink and paper to her father.
Had any of the village boys known the girl's father, they might not be so quick to flirt. The man who had raised this cheerful girl was harsh and gaunt, with deeply sunken eyes that glinted a cold green. His hair and beard grew wild and untrimmed, and his hands were perpetually stained with ink and raw with blisters. But despite his frightful appearance, the writer was still very young, and he loved his daughter with all of his heart. His magical stories about princesses and knights were published under only one name: Vulture. Though his tales were romantic in setting, one could not fail to notice the deep sadness that seemed to seep through the sweepingly poetic phrases.
"Papa!" the girl would cry as she pranced into the tiny room in which her father worked, "I'm back with your supplies!"
Turning his eyes to his daughter—eyes that looked as if they belonged to a much older man—the writer would smile his sad smile and hold out his hand to the girl. With a skip in her step, the child would grasp her father's hand with both of her own and playfully wriggle into his lap, as she used to do when she was small.
Or, as the sad writer liked to imagine she used to. For this child had never been small. She had never even been to the little village before today. But the carefully fabricated memories implanted in her mind were woven so delicately, she did not realize that she was no more than a few pretty words pulled from a page. For you see, so very long ago, and yet so very painfully recent, the writer had lost the one he loved to a terrible, irreversible curse that had transformed his love into a little yellow duck.
The curse may seem like a silly one at first. Perhaps one might even go so far as to assume that it was easily borne. But watching your love swim idly around a weedy pond, forever imprisoned in the form of a tiny waterfowl, was not the same as holding her hand during a rainstorm. Tucking your soul's only light onto a pillow beside your own is not the same as feeling her arms brush against your own. In time, the writer could not bear the distance between himself and the one who was so near.
So he did all he could do.
He wrote.
He believed that, if he could bring to life something, someone who could serve as a median between himself and his love, it might make the curse easier to withstand. And so, he delved into his vast, labyrinth mind and unearthed those things that he remembered about his beloved that so pierced his heart whenever they surfaced in his memory.
He took her hair; not it's color, but it's playful, unruly quality. He took her eyes; here, he stole both their shape and their color, for little could compare to their kaleidoscopic sky-blue hues. He took her slender limbs; those graceful legs and arms that enchanted and saved the lives of so many. He even took his love's annoyingly endearing voice. But what the writer did not realize was that, because he took so many elements characteristic of his love, there would not be enough left that still belonged to her to warrant her continued existence.
And so the little duck vanished.
She did not perish…but she did not simply leave, either. She was gone forever. And the writer had to live with the guilt of having causing this tragedy.
So you see, the beautiful, happy young girl caused no happiness at all. For though the writer loved her with all his broken, shattered heart, he hated her more than he had hated anyone before. She was the light of his life, and the torture of his soul.
You may wonder then, who endured the worse of the two existences. Was it the child of words, pulled into a cold world by a father who could barely stand to look at her? Or was it the writer, who had lost everything but his ability to weave stories, only to have his talent back fire and steal his love?
Or was it ultimately the little duck, who unexpectedly vanished, without having been given the chance to see her daughter or even tell the writer that she loved him?