Darkness had been the small consoling world of the chick for a very long time. The velvety onyx surroundings had acted like an assuring blanket; always there. They masked her from the unknown outside; all the strange noises and feelings that came and went, unexplained. What was outside, she had never wondered and never acknowledged; but a time came when the shell cracked. Revealing a whole new world of wonders – both beyond extraordinary and deeply disheartening.

Her soft pink flesh collided with the inside of the shell, as it cracked into several small pieces that scattered in all directions. Delicate eyes closed; the newly hatched chick made her wavering first steps out of the nest that had housed for several months – out of the safety of a blessing she had never needed to think about before. It was a few moments before her fragile beak parted and she let out a cry.

The sound was loud for her; as it was the first one, she had sent out into this world, but it was barely heard by the others. It took her wails gradually getting louder for the other chirping hatchlings and the mother to notice. When she was finally acknowledged, the mother duck glanced over, and waddled to where the latest hatchling was perched. Her black eyes gazed, examining her.

A mother’s instincts are caring, loving, and kind. But the duck’s eyes pondered in confusion; a mother can also see beyond the veil. It wouldn’t and couldn’t be explained, but the untimely arrival of the hatchling was not the only absurd thing about this being. Her stare lingered on the helpless pink chick, yet to grow its feathers, yet to grow its protection, before tending to the rest of her squealing and hungry babies.

The mother fed them all, and she came last; the strange feeling she didn’t know to call hunger churned inside her, until it was finally – partially – satisfied. One of the chicks would have had to be fed last, it didn’t mean they were loved any less; it didn’t mean anything.

But however true this may have been, the chick didn’t know how to bargain with herself or comfort her mind with illogical white lies, she was too young, and the feeling that was once hunger transformed and continued to twist her insides. Only now, it wasn’t in her instincts to cry out; for food or water or shelter couldn’t fix this problem. Her mind was too new, too fragile to ponder on it, so she unknowingly internalized these tears and continued to live – or try to live – as the bird she was not.

*

The baby birds all waddled in a line to the pond, with their mother beckoning them on at the end. Now they had all started to grow fluff and resemble their mother a little more in shape  – almost all of them anyway. Soon they would begin to grow their flight feathers.

Time and again, their mother would bring them down to the pond. To practice swimming, to get them used to the water and to play. It was a childish pleasure of the chicks to speed around in the water, flinging it everywhere whilst chasing each other. They played and they played. They played until they collapsed from delighted exhaustion. Then after they ate, they slept sound all huddled together in a warm embrace, to awaken early the next day and chirp at their mother for food and fun all over again.

As they neared the water’s soft edge, the impressions their webbed feet had made over the several times they had been there before were still quite visible. Although some of them had been swiped away by the lashing rain that made the ground soft and malleable again, others had been untouched for days and so had dried hard and cemented into the ground.

One by one, the ducklings prodded the water with their feet and then delved into it. It took a moment for each one to find balance, but slowly their feet were underwater propelling them and leaving a rippled trail where they swam. It became more natural each time; easier, until it was second nature.

It was not very long before all the ducklings were swimming around carelessly in the shallow water and their mother overseeing them. Now, only one remained at the water’s lonely edge staring downward.

Her wavering reflection returned her shy gaze. Beneath it, she could see the murky bottom of the shallow pond. The last chick stood there for a few minutes, turning her head in mild amusement of watching herself follow suit and copy from the water. The aggressive ripples created by her siblings reached the water’s edge and damped her feet as they went out, like a tide. The feeling, still strange and new, made her flinch but she didn’t draw away and instead tried to let the feeling soak in.

Truth being that she, in actuality, liked the water. The weightless feeling of floating through the strangely amazing aquatic environment was one that she loved and allowed to fill her up any time she would experience it. The water felt safe – like home.

Its dark depths had unknown and unexplainable, mysterious miracles lurking beneath them. It felt like an endless world of possibilities, and there had been more than one occasion on which she had stared out into the sun’s glare and wished to wander farther than just the shallow end of the small pond she was in. Longed to venture out into what she couldn’t see, where, she didn’t know – but hoped against all hope – that, she belonged.

But the water wasn’t safe; it wasn’t home, even though it felt as much. It wasn’t, and she didn’t belong.

When she had succumbed to the pull and let herself fall into the pond, her legs had been ready to catch her. They had already grown strong; stronger than she had known. They had been ready to steady her and propel her through the water; giving birth to the free, airy feeling she yearned to live through again and again. She had been good at it, so surprisingly good in fact, that any other suppressed depressive feeling was drenched for the brief moment she had allowed the happiness to fill her up.

But her happiness had been short-lived. It was a matter of moments before the birds in the pond – the merry ducklings who had been mindlessly playing with each other as true siblings not two minutes ago – all raced towards her, all cawing and squawking in resentful ways. They had poked their beaks at her and chased her from the water and back onto its edge; to be all alone and isolated – where she stood now.

The mother had calmed them down soon after and coaxed back into the water but had done nothing else. They had all left her behind as they continued playing, startled and scared. It had come as a great surprise to her the first few times, and perhaps they found her reaction entertaining and a great reason to continue, essentially, bullying her. But there was a point when she stopped reacting, when she decided that it would be easier to just take herself out of the equation entirely.

Standing less than a step away from the water, the desire to join her brothers and sisters in the pond was so strong. Too strong. For a moment, she considered lifting one of her black, lean, webbed feet to thrust herself into the water and savour what she could of that feeling again. But just then, she was nearly trampled by the flap of feathers and energetic ducklings making their way out of the pond whilst shaking the wetness away. The moment had passed.

All the hopes and expectations of experiencing the delight another time vanished into the air, and the knot inside her wound tighter. It would never have happened, inevitably they would have chased, they would have bullied. They would always make her feel this way. For being grey, for being big… For being different.

She hung her head sadly and let out a small cry of despair; far too quiet for anyone to hear, far too small for anyone to see. As she fell in line with the other ducklings and began trudging back to the nest with them, the urge to stare back at the now distant lake and the missed chance overpowered her, and she submitted to turning her neck round.

The sun was gradually sinking from view in the sky, and as it began falling behind the horizon, its rays shone on the still surface of the pond making it glimmer as though it were filled with gems. A small breeze sent a gentle and swift motion across the water which folded in on itself, then the pond was unmoving once more.

It was as though the scene had snatched her hopes as they had been swept into the air and saved them. It was like they were still there, in that moment, in that memory, in her heart. The breeze, the lake, the sun, the sky… They seemed to know her, to beckon and call her. It was too much for her mind to comprehend at the time, but she didn’t suppress the feelings. Instead, she allowed their unknown and unrestricted possibilities to fill her up; to make her feel different. To make her feel special.

*