Today started out ok. I woke up, ate a scrap of bread and waddled over to meet my friend Long Legs. One of her chicks has almost finished growing his adult feathers.
"There sure are a lot of humans around today." Long legs remarked, "I wonder why."
"There is no benefit to trying to understand humans. They are strange creatures." I warned her.
We spent the next little while swimming around the pond and finding tasty scraps to eat. Suddenly a group of humans by the edge of the pond started making a lot of noise. There was a splash, then quiet. We swam over to them to see what was going on. The humans were silent. They just stared at us. At us and the new duck.
"Hello," I said to the new duck, "who are you?"
The duck didn't respond. In fact, they made no sign that they had heard me at all. It appeared to be a girl, but with how the world is, you can never be sure.
"Quack," said the duck. Literally. She said the word quack. Was this some kind of joke?
"Quack quack," she said again.
Long Legs now tried her luck with communication. "Quack to you to." She told the duck, "where are you from?"
The duck ignored her completely.
The new duck started swimming, but it looked a little odd. The new duck swam completely stiffly in straight lines. There was none of the calm dignity of a proper pond duck. Where on Earth was this duck from?
"If she won't tell us her name, we should give her one." Said Long Legs, "after all, we have to call her something."
"Strange Duck" I said.
Long Legs immediately disagreed. "That's kinda mean. She will never want to talk with us if we call her that."
"Perfectly Normal Duck, then." "Alright"
We swam after Perfectly Normal.
Perfectly Normal duck started acting stranger and stranger. She kept randomly stopping or swimming in circles. She even managed to do a backflip. That is not easy as a duck. She also never spoke a word other than "quack". The humans on the shore were still watching us, and I wondered if Perfectly Normal seemed strange even to them. One of the humans suddenly threw a handful of breadcrumbs at us. Perfectly Normal immediately began pecking at the surface of the water. It was only when I got closer to try to get some for myself that I noticed she never actually ate any bread, she just pecked at the water. I was getting seriously creeped out here.
I backed away and rejoined Long Legs. "I'm getting a really bad feeling about that duck" I told her. Long Legs nodded in agreement. We slowly swam away, but Perfectly Normal noticed us and started following us. We swam faster, and she swam faster. Soon, Long Legs and I were flapping like crazy to try to get away from the creepy duck behind us. Perfectly Normal's wings didn't move at all. She continued swimming completely stiffly, head pointing straight forward. Eventually, Long Legs and I managed to flap our way out of the water and we flew to the other side of the pond. Perfectly Normal seemed to give up. She turned and swam all the way back to the humans. The humans picked her up, and she didn't struggle one bit. They pressed something on her back and she froze completely. They packed Perfectly Normal into a box and they all left.
I am so confused.
