The Canal

The Duck

The canal was my favorite spot to fly to. There were too many ducks at the state parks, because even ducks had a preference for fancy things. There were always crowds at the Connected Lakes and Highline. The people there both adored and hated ducks, it really was a mixed bag. Kids were also a mixed bag. They would either crouch, looking at you, with their hands outstretched offering white bread (which is awful I will say) or rocks that they trick you into thinking is food. Or sometimes they would chase after you with a stick. Not fun. State parks are a real hassle, and all the people and the noise and getting pelted with rocks that you were tricked into thinking was food is also extremely irritating and inconveniencing. Never mind the boats always shaking up the water.

Last season I had found a little pond. There was a rickety little dock to sit on, which was nice, and it was tucked off by the road. I could watch the cars drive past for entertainment, and paddle around in peace and quiet. An old couple lived there, and the man would come out and scatter seed on the grass. But then the old man stopped coming, and the house emptied out, and the pond was drained one day. So I left.

Its hard finding a nice place, especially during mating season. Everywhere is too crowded and everyone is annoying. But the canal is good. It moves quick, which can be exciting, but on the days you just want to sit for a while it gets a little old. Sometimes trash floats down it, and there are dogs that live in the houses along it and all they do is bark and bark. But there aren’t any other ducks. Or, well, there’s one.

I’m assuming she’s a lot like me. She doesn’t quite like the company of other ducks or the uppity way of life you experience in the state parks. She likes cars too. I’ve seen her watch them. She even sits on the side of the road sometimes, just far enough back that she won’t get hit. We’ve both been swimming together, but I haven’t made any flashy moves yet. Its nerve racking, this mating thing. It’ll be my first time doing it, and I’m still unsure of the right moves. I practice sometimes, when she isn’t around. I’ll bob my head and flash my feathers, but it all feels weird. Mostly I just sit and think of how else I could do this. Dancing makes me feel like an idiot.

I could bring her a flower, but most everything is dead now. A branch? Could that work? No, what good is a branch anyways. I could sing her a song maybe, spend a day with the little birds that sit and titter at the birdfeeders along the canal.

I bob underwater and then resurface, shaking the water off my feathers. I can’t sing, even if I spent a whole year training with the songbirds, I could never do anything more than just quack. And besides, there’s no chance that would even work. Everyone knows girls like plumage. They like color and drama and finesse and – hey.

I’ve seen this house before. Immaculate lawn, tiny dog that’s sometimes cool and a tiny water feature that I don’t get chased out of by the humans, it’s the dog’s incessant talking that gets me. I swim out of the quick water of the canal and waddle over to it.

The picnic table is all set up, glittering with beads and flashy streamers. There are colors on the table that I had never even seen before.

Distantly, I hear a splash and a faint quacking sound. I look up the canal. Its her!

There are no signs of the dog, but there are people moving around inside the house. I’ll have to act quick if I want to get away with this.

There’s a hole in the fence that I walk through and then I waddle up to the table, hopping onto the chairs and then up on the table itself. It’s a glorious, vibrant display. I drape beads over my neck, red and gold and silver beads, and I take some of the flashy streamers, sticking them into my plumage until almost my entire body is shimmering and rustling with the streamers. I look at myself in the window, perfectly and wonderfully flashy. There’s no way she’ll be able to resist me now.

Then something behind the window moves, and barks.

It’s the dog! That stupid annoying dog! And now people too!

I almost start flying, but I think of all the streamers stuck into my feathers. Surely they’d just fly away. I’ll have to make a run for it across the lawn.

I’m down off the table, running as fast as I can without loosing all my new streamers. A few shake off, and I leave a little trail of the shiny plastic behind me as I waddle with all my might across the grass. I can hear the door open and someone shouting, but thankfully I’m through the hole by the time the dog has scrambled outside. I turn back and see his little face shoved in the hole. I quack definitely and waddle off.

She’s out of the canal now, picking at her feathers along the side of it, but the opposite side of me. That’s just fine though. There’s no way she can miss me, I’m as glittery and vibrant as ever.

I strut carefully, bobbing my head a little bit to get the beads to swing and clack against each other. I quack subtly and smoothly, just enough to get her attention. She stops what she’s doing and looks at me, and I can see her beak drop open. It worked! I’m impressing her!

She starts quacking back, and I stop, ruffling my feathers for extra affect, but then I realize they’re not quacks of praise… she’s laughing at me.

“What is all this!” She yells across the canal.

I’m embarrassed now, and I can’t think of what to say. “Uh, um, my… my plumage?”

This only makes her laugh harder. “Did you raid someone’s birthday party?”

I tuck my head down and start shaking my feathers so the glittering streamers fall out. I’m hopeless. I’m better off just swimming at the water basins at the sewage treatment plants, nobody ever goes there.

“Wait! Don’t take it off!” She dives into the water, quickly swimming across with her head grazing just above the water. She pops out on the other side next to me, shaking the water off her feathers. “Oh, you’ve got beads too.” She picks at them with her beak and laughs again. “This is the most impressive display I’ve ever seen. I hate it when everyone dances.”

“R-Really?” She nods. “Me too. I’m no good at it anyways. I thought this would be a bit better.”

She walks around me, fully taking in the grand display. “I see you here all the time. You’ve never even said hello.”

“I was always too nervous.”

“What brings you to the canal?”

I shrug. Her, mostly. “Its quiet. Calm. Well, not really calm.” I pause for effect and no silence meets us, just the sound of racing cars and barking dogs. “I guess its secluded. Why are you here?”

“I like people. I like watching them, they’re funny. I also like cars. Especially the big bright ones. You wanna watch with me?”

“Cars?”

“Yeah. Come on, shake all that stuff off and we’ll fly to the bridge. But leave the beads.” She picks at them again and then nuzzles into my neck. “I think they’re cute.”

We sit on the bridge talking and watching the cars go past. She’s taught herself to read, from watching the humans and taking their newspapers. She knows the names to all the cars that drive past. The names sound so strange and funny. I love hearing them, especially Suzuki, and Tacoma. We talk about our simple duck lives. She tells me she has a nest where she stores things she finds, human things. Little trinkets and bottles. She wants to add my necklaces to her collection, she tells me she’ll take me there tomorrow, so I can see it.

I tell her about the pond, about peace and quiet. I tell her about how I’d like to sit and watch the clouds on the reflection of the water, and here in the canal I love watching the white foam bubble and swirl past. I tell her that we should stay at a pond, somewhere quiet, somewhere nice, where we can watch the clouds and watch people play and swim. She sits closer to me, tells me she would like that very much.

When the sun sets, we go our separate ways. She boldly walks across the street, there are no cars coming past, and when she gets to the other end she laughs and waves before flying off. I stay on the bridge a bit longer until everything goes dark, and then I fly off to my own nest to sleep, dreaming of her.

The Driver

I see a duck on the canal back behind the house where I live. He’s as stunning as any duck, but he’s always alone. I walked the path alongside the canal once, right beside him, and he didn’t even really move. He just sat along the canal, looking down at the water.

The canal moves quick, and it has white, bubbly foam that swirls with the current like Van Gogh’s starry night. I like to sit beside it as it bubbles past. The water seems so fun and inviting, like you could slip in and be carried away. But it moves fast, all the way through town, under bridges and beside roads. Wooden crosses are staked into the ground beside it, so I never jump in.

I drive a section of the road along the canal almost every day. It’s a nice shady drive, with not much to look at. One day I noticed an odd-looking pile by the side of the road. Like someone had swept up a bunch of dirt and then stuck a feather on top. On my way back home for the day I look closer. It’s a duck. Mangled from being hit, its plain brown wing sticking up almost in a salute.

I look away and shudder. That evening I sit by the canal with a handful of seeds. I see the duck, all alone, come floating by. I throw the seeds out to him and he takes them cautiously. He stays away from me, but eats the seeds I throw out to him.

“I’m sorry.” I say.

The Duck

A few days after I saw her nest, we made plans to search for a new one. We wanted a pond, somewhere with cars and people, but that was quiet too. I wanted some place still, to watch the clouds. We parted ways for the final time before our journey, where we’d spend the next season together. I watched her fly off, wishing that it were already tomorrow, so we could start a new adventure together.

I huddled beside the canal. It got quieter at night, without the dogs barking and the cars roaring past. I know mates don’t always last forever, that was what I had always been told. But I liked to think we were different, that when the season concluded we’d stay by that perfect pond, forever.

But the next morning she didn’t show up. Or the day after, or the day after that. A week went by. She wasn’t at her nest either.

Her nest was beside the canal too, along the back of a large building that housed a lot of people. I decided that she must’ve gotten lost, or caught up in something, but surely she would come back. She had to. We had to find the pond, move all her things from this place into another. It still smelled like her, and it was warm and nice. Every now and then a person would come out and sit along the canal. They threw me seeds. And every night I waited.

I waited for her arrival.