Someone let it slip to me about two weeks ago now. And it’s damn near driven me insane. They let it slip so casually too, like they’d said nothing interesting.
“The elderly love feeding the ducks.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? The elderly love feeding the ducks. What kind of thing was that to say? Why would the elderly, specifically the elderly, that’s what they’d said, love feeding the ducks? It didn’t make any sense. I can’t get the stupid thing out of my head.
I’ve been camped out in the bushes down by the lake in the park, you know the ones where you can see straight across at all the people sitting on the benches, I’ve been camped out there every morning for about a week now. And they were right. The elderly do love feeding the ducks. I see the same ones come along with their baguettes and sliced pans every day. And they just sit there on those benches, throwing, wasting bread for those idiotic quackers to gulp down without even as much as a courtesy chew.
Were they trying to piss me off or something? Has the whole world gone insane and all of a sudden it’s perfectly ok for the elderly to declare they love feeding the ducks? You know, with kids, I get it. They’re too young to know any better. They get excited by the quacks and the wings and all and that’s fine. Annoying, but fine. I’m not going to confront a duck-loving kid about it any time soon. But the elderly have had their whole lives to get this ridiculous notion out of their systems.
This is my seventh day. My head is near exploding. I’ve spent each morning this week staring at them, trying to figure out which part of it they liked so much. Was it the ducks themselves? The sitting? The bread? If it was the bread they liked why not just eat the bread and be done with it? If they liked sitting so much why not sit on their own chair at home or in a restaurant or in the church or something?
There’s this guy in particular. He’s the one. He’s the one who’ll make me snap. Brings way more bread than the rest of them. But you know it wasn’t just that. He was actually good at feeding the ducks. He even knew where to throw it so as the swans or seagulls couldn’t get to it and his little pals the ducks could. How or why did he get so good at this? Couldn’t he be spending his time doing something better than becoming efficient at feeding ducks?
My brain was starting to hurt. I just couldn’t get my head around it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something to this idiot. He was wasting what little of his life he had left on ducks. I jumped out of the bushes, knocking my tent over in the process and started sprinting round the lake, dying to get to this madman and give him a piece of all this. He kept feeding, took no notice of me till I caught one of the pieces of bread he threw before it hit the water, slammed it down and started to mush it into the ground with my brand new camping boots, smiling and laughing at him the whole time. I showed him what it was like.
“WHY DO YOU WASTE ALL YOUR TIME HERE FEEDING THE DUCKS? YOU’RE GOING TO DIE SOON YOU MORON! GET OUT AND LIVE, DON’T THROW ALL YOUR REMAINING YEARS AND BREAD AWAY ON THESE IDIOTS! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? TELL. ME. WHAT. IS. SO. GREAT. ABOUT. FEEDING. THE. GOD. DAMNED. DUCKS!”
To be honest I knew straight away I had crossed a line. I stood before him, panting, sweating, shoes covered in bread (fresh bread), waiting for a response. But there was a shift on my part. With guilt kicking in I now longed for him to like me. I wanted him to show me the error of my ways. I needed him to. Please, old duck man, tell me all that is wrong with me.
He didn’t look angry. A little surprised, but not angry. He held my gaze for the longest time without doing anything. Eventually I could decipher the look in his eyes as sympathy. Or empathy. I never could tell the difference between the two. He kept staring while his right hand reached for something. His baguette. He broke off a piece, cool as you like. What a pro.
My mind was starting to melt. In what I think was a good way, but I couldn’t be sure. How did I get here? He slowly held the bread out towards me. He was offering it to me. But he was offering it to me at about waist height. What was happening? I really wanted the bread. I mean really wanted it. More than anything in the world. And I’d already had a huge breakfast. With toast and everything, which is essentially bread. But I still craved the bread in his hand more than any meal I’d ever craved before. I sank down to my knees, holding his gaze the whole time. The bread was still a few inches from my face. I had to tuck my arms in at my sides so I could lean forward to feed without losing balance. I used my mouth to take the bread from his hand, and swallowed it whole. And then, against any bit of control I thought I had over my bodily functions, I let out a little……………..QUACK.
I continued to stare up at him, now feeling somewhat enlightened. He smiled down at me. He started to nod. And finally, finally, I understood what it was all about.
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Aidan Fitzmaurice is a writer from Dublin who is constantly searching for a way to put all the words in the right order. He not succeeded he yet someday has but will.