 |
NOT NEWS | ||||
Details
|
The Talking Duck
Charles told this story to his grandson, and his grandson never forgave him for it:
Years ago, Charles wanted to impress his so-called friends at the company, and overhearing them discuss weekend duck hunting from his cubicle one day, he decided to go himself and finally have a decent water cooler conversation starter for the following Monday morning. Charles hadn’t been hunting in years. Last time was with his father in college. They didn’t catch anything all day, and his father got too drunk to drive home, so Charles took the wheel as the sun set.
This time Charles left his house at five, and was
knee deep in a marsh just after seven. The morning sun slowly rose above
the softly swaying reeds, and by ten Charles was dying of boredom, having
not fired his gun once. He remembered then why he stopped hunting, and
cursed himself for not bringing any beer. After a brief lunch break – a
ham sandwich in the backseat of his car – he was wandering through the
water, trying to concoct a riveting fictional tale for the water cooler,
when his big chance finally came. Suddenly, from that particular reed bed, a startled voice rang out: ‘Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!’ Charles was a sensible man. He stopped shooting, raised his gun out of the firing position and prayed to the god he didn’t really think much about that he didn’t mortally wound anyone. He waited for a set of hands to come up, followed by a head and a body, but that didn’t happen. Instead a single feathered wing waved to him above the reeds, from across the marsh. Reflex made him want to line up his target once again, but he resisted, waiting to see if a man would eventually emerge, perhaps holding this certainly-not-dead duck. But no man rose. Only a single duck, now flapping both of his wings furiously, rising above the reeds and sailing towards a slack-jawed Charles. The duck’s beak was moving, and Charles’ ears heard speech that matched it. ‘Holy mackerel, that was close!’ Charles had the shot of his lifetime, a target hunters dream about. Instead he dropped his gun into two feet of water without noticing. The duck came to roost on a large rock jutting out of the pond, only a few steps from our hero. It looked up at Charles quizzically, who looked down on it incredulously. ‘You dropped your gun’, it pointed out, in a clear pleasant voice. Not unlike an extremely pleasant customer service representative, and miles away from Disney’s Donald. ‘I…’, Charles began, and as his fingers began to move around the nothingness between them he realized the duck was right. ‘I…yes…yes, I did.’ They stared at each other for a while. The duck felt he broke the ice with the gun remark and felt he should let Charles start the next topic, and Charles still had trouble with basic mental functions. Finally he strung three obvious words together: ‘You can talk.’ ‘Yes I can’, the duck replied, ‘I suppose it’s hard to wrap your head around.’ ‘Wrap your head around’, Charles echoed, ‘yes, that’s exactly it. That’s what’s very hard.’ Small talk came easier as the fog around Charles’ head lifted. The duck had an unpronounceable name in human speech. Charles told him about the uninspired hunting with his father. The duck said he never met the patriarch of his family, but assumed the worst. Charles really wanted to know about how the duck just happened to pick up perfect English, but not wanting to be that forward, told the mallard about his job at Smith & Hughes financial. ‘Sounds awful. You go back to that on Monday?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘Are you spending the night here in a tent or are you going back to your roost today?’ ‘Well, uh, I was planning to leave around four, I guess. Y’know, back in time for dinner.’ ‘Well watch out for traffic.’ ‘What’s that, talking duck?’ ‘I mean, beware route 31.’ ‘That’s okay, I take the side roads.’ ‘Really? How does that work out for you?’ ‘Depends on the weather. If it’s rainy it’s not worth it because of washouts.’ ‘I see. What do you drive?’ ‘A Toyota Camry.’ ‘Not good on the rain?’ ‘Not really, but I usually just have it for city driving, and it’s good enough.’ ‘Of course.’ ‘Listen’, Charles began, feeling bold, ‘are you…uh… a magic duck, or something?’ ‘Magic?’ the duck said nonplussed, cocking his head to one side. ‘Yeah, like, do you grant wishes, or give predictions?’
'Wishes? Give me a break. What do I look like? A
tern?' Charles was quickly realizing that he was enthralled with the duck. Mild mannered, well spoken, even witty, he felt it was a crime against nature to let the bird live here in this marsh eating grubs and narrowly avoiding sprays of buckshot. He meekly offered an invitation to the duck to live in his backyard. It didn’t have the expansiveness that was Canadian wilderness, but there was a collection of bushes in one corner, decent patio furniture, and a pond in a park six houses down the street. The duck agreed, and much to Charles’ surprise, instead of following the car from hundreds of feel up, the fowl asked for the passenger seat and the radio be turned to a classic rock station. Upon arrival at home that night, the duck was not welcomed as Charles would have hoped. Oh, it talked to his wife and child certainly, and they understood every word, but his daughter said it smelled funny (the duck was not pleased), and in private later that night his wife asked if it would not be better if Charles perhaps tried to make more human friends. ‘What does it say about a man if he is charmed by a duck?’ she asked. ‘It’s not just any duck, honey. It’s talking duck.’ ‘But it’s still a duck! What are we going to do? Take it to friend’s parties?’ ‘It’s… it’s a conversation piece.’ ‘It’s not a Matisse, Charles. At best it’s a house pet. At worse, it’s a menu item.’ Charles assured his wife the duck would spend most of his time in the backyard or the park down the street, and hoped that news of the duck would be met with more enthusiasm at work on Monday. But it was not to be. ‘Does it you tell your fortune?’ they asked ‘round the water cooler. ‘Well, no’, Charles replied. ‘Then what’s the point?’ But Charles’ excitement could not be deterred. While at first only watching films and hanging out in the backyard with the fowl, he finally mustered up the courage to take the duck to his species idea of a watering hole. They received some initial glares, but with duck downing his pint with ease (thanks to a little help from a straw), he became just another regular on a tab. Restaurants were visited, food consumed (although the duck drew the line at consuming other birds), and a splendid time was had by most, as Charles’ wife was usually hoping for a romantic evening between the two of them. Overall, life went on as usual, the family going to school or work, and the duck dividing it’s time between the backyard and the couch in front of the television. It was humdrum, business as usual, only now there was a waterfowl there that couldn’t get enough of the Discovery Channel. This quiet life continued until Charles came home one evening and found his family cowering on the doorstep, suitcases in hand. 'The duck got into the rum', his wife explained, standing up and walking away, 'I'm going to my mother's.' ‘Oh, honey-‘ His wife continued towards the freshly parked car in the driveway, his daughter in tow. ‘He’s flying around the kitchen, relieving himself on the counter and swearing at Lisa. Call me when you come to your senses.’ There was no chance for an argument on the front yard. The car doors slammed and the Toyota backed out of the driveway with a screech. Charles watched it disappear down the street he just drove up with a sigh. Opening the front door he heard glass shattering in the living room. He peered inside and found the entire room torn asunder. Lamps, vases, portraits shattered on the floor, papers everywhere, small furniture overturned, large pieces ripped and soiled. ‘Oh my god’, Charles said, amazed that such a small creature could cause so much damage. And that’s when it stumbled into the room from the kitchen. It was clearly inebriated, using the wall as a crutch and dragging his left wing along the floor. It looked up to Charles, first with surprise, then cold recognition. ‘What did you do?!’ Charles yelled at it. ‘Welcome home’, the fowl slurred, then added a string of expletives calling into question the mating practices of Charles’ ancestors. Charles ignored him and answered his own question: ‘You destroyed my house!’ ‘You destroyed my family!’ the duck retorted, ‘all of you did it! Murderers!’ ‘We went over this! You eat bugs, we eat ducks! It’s not the best system but fair’s fair!’ ‘It’s different! You guys…all you people…you take it all way too far!’ 'Take it easy, all right?! You're drunk!' ‘And you’re cruel! You’re all disgusting humans! Shame! Shame on you!’
‘What are you talking about?!’ ‘What?’ ‘Foie-gras! I looked it up! You sadists! You stuff my family until their guts explode!' 'I don't! I'm a financial advisor! Beside, I find it too fattening myself.' 'You pig! If the other ducks knew you behaved like this they wouldn't dare take the bread you throw!' ‘You know, for a house pet you’re pretty ungrateful.’ The duck bristled his wings at this violently. ‘House pet? You call me a house pet?! You invited me to this house! And I accepted! And I didn’t do it by licking your face or rubbing against your legs like you’re favourite pets! I said, ‘that’s very big of your Charles, thank you very much and lead the way’!’ Stronger words were exchanged and more things were flung across the room. The duck spent the night outside, throwing up in the garden as the sun rose. Charles called his wife on the way to work and she refused to consider coming home until the duck situation was taken care of. Charles lamented his bizarre plight at Smith & Hughes Financial to his fellow water cooler denizens. Some offered condolences, one offered advice: 'Maybe it's time for the duck to 'fly south for good', if you get my drift.' ‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ ‘Come on, Charles. Assert your control over nature. If you don’t, he’ll walk right over you.’ Our hero was full of conflicting feelings on the evening commute home. Stepping through the door he found the house in the same mess as he’d left it. With a quick stopover at the locked cabinet in the laundry room, Charles walked into the living room and found the duck sitting on the sofa watching daytime television. When the duck saw him he stepped on the remote control to turn the TV off. He looked up at Charles expectantly. ‘Come to apologize?’ ‘Look talking duck’, he began, ‘I came into this with the best intentions, but I think you’ll agree that this relationship isn’t working anymore.’ ‘Funny, that doesn’t sound like ‘I’m sorry’ to me.’ ‘I’m asking you nicely to leave my house. And not come back.’ ‘Your house? This was probably a field ten years ago. Why don’t we ask the fox whose house this is? Unless you shot them, too.’ Charles didn’t know if the duck was goading him on, or if he already knew what Charles had behind his back, but he pulled the gun out and aimed it at the waterfowl, anyway. He was wrong. The duck was clearly shocked, his lower beak dropping in disbelief. With the gun only inches from the bird, Charles muttered one word, and he finally felt like a tough guy: ‘Out.’ The duck took a couple steps back and sputtered, 'You can't do this to me! I'm endangered!' 'Liar!' Charles yelled, and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately his hunting skills had always left something to be desired, and even from such a close range, the duck, which had been dodging bullets all his life, easily managed to get out of the way. It took to the air screaming curses at his sudden enemy. Charles kept firing the gun off in his living room blowing holes in everything that wasn’t already destroyed, the remaining family portraits and some framed prints of art from the Louvre. The duck circled him effortlessly, waiting for his chance, which came when Charles shot in the direction of the sliding doors that led to the backyard. The glass exploded, sending large pieces flying onto the patio and giving the duck his escape route. It flapped carefully through the jagged edges of Charles’ former sliding door and became a just another forest creature once again. As Charles poked his carefully out between the pieces of shattered glass he saw the duck fly away into the cloudless starry night. That’s when he heard a sound he hadn’t heard for quite a long time. It was the sound of quacking. Angry, resentful quacking, the type the depths of hell would have a hard time duplicating. It didn’t stop when the duck became a speck in sky. It didn’t stop when Charles phoned his wife and told him it was safe to come home. Instead it rang in Charles’ ears for weeks, ceasing only when he ventured to try some pate at a company party. Next fall, Charles went deer hunting with $300 designer earplugs. He couldn’t even hear his own rifle’s roar. It was cold and rainy, and he forgot the beer again. Charles came home that night empty handed, wet, and alone. His family was overjoyed, as they knew a particularly engaging buck could have meant the end of them all.
END
|
got a heartbeat produced by god and boy it sound hard | |||