The Ducks

I will seize the silky satin from you and weep, for today is my birthday. I?m eleventy five years old. People just don?t understand! Wrest me from sleep! Today is my special day! It?s my birthday! I?m twelve-hundred years old, but look pretty good for my age. I sit here again today just like yesterday. I?m in a park by the duck pond. There are at least twenty ducks floating around on the pond, hoping I?ll give them some kind of goodie. They are crafty ducks, and every one of them is simply yet thoroughly tied into my brainwaves. They connect to me through invisible waves of electromagnetic induction. The ducks look harmless enough, but they control my every movement. When you?re twelve-hundred and maybe even plus fifty years or more old, you lose the ability to discern the subtle nuances of control as if serious chapters of verse finally made sense. I was a good man, but the ducks made me do bad things. Just last night, they sent me out?

Wait, let me start again.

I was a good man, but the ducks made me do bad things. Like just last night. They sent me to the home of Irene Benderstroker. She appeared to be just an ordinary woman, but apparently, she used to be a duck, and she had transformed herself into a successful housewife. She had two children, male (not duck) and she loved her children as if they were the sun, or something that nurtured her fields and made them grow into stalks of love and vines to fill our bags with flowers and simple rhymes.

So they sent me to Irene?s house to check in on her, see how she was doing, if she was doing too well, the ducks, well, the ducks wanted me to kill her. I would do it painlessly with six slugs in the head. I hoped, however, that it wouldn?t come to that, and I could reason with her to rejoin the ducks, in the pond, and let me feed them bread and goodies.

Irene answered the door in a lacy nightgown, looking so sexy, hard to believe the duck thing.

?What can I do for you??

?Are you Irene??

?Yes.?

?Well, Irene, the ducks sent me, can I come in.?

?Who sent you??

?The ducks, I need a word with you urgently.?

?The ducks??

?Yes, the ducks, you know, on the pond.?

?Well, alright, come in.?

She ushered me through the front door into her living room. It was large and spartan. Two white sofas sat against the far wall, under an open window. There was a stainless steel table with a frosted glass surface. Several stainless steel lamps were placed around the room to provide a minimum of light in a maximum of space. She bade me sit on one of the sofas; she sat on the other.

?I don?t understand why you?re here.?

?Look, Irene, you know why I?m here. Don?t you remember the ducks? Where you came from??

Her blank stare answered my question.

?Are you willing to rejoin your comrades??

She continued staring at me, with increasing agitation.

I pulled out my gun and pointed it at her. Her face became a mask of fear.

?What do you want?? She whispered, cowering.

?Rejoin your brothers!? I shouted.

?What are you talking about?!? She shouted.

I fired six times into her head. She fell back on her couch, the white was becoming red. I looked around and the coast looked clear.

I left and headed quickly to the pond. As quickly as I could at my age!

So they?re all waiting there, looking at me, floating and flapping and quacking. I heard a voice in my head.

?Good job, now it?s your turn.?

I turned to run and felt an incredible and painful sensation pass over me, as if knives had begun randomly poking me through my clothes. I cried out and fell to the ground.

?What is??

Suddenly everything began to grow. The ducks got larger and larger and I looked around. I realized that I was getting smaller and smaller.

?Quack, quack.? I shouted.

I waddled over to the pond and jumped in.