Clemence the Insomniac Duckling - part 4

Irma awoke at dawn, panicked at the idea of having slept. She’d had an uneasy night. Herons had visited her in her dreams haunting her with reminders that her ducklings wouldn’t reach adulthood.

She’d sped off to the shelter where they slept and counted. This revealed 6 little bodies, alive and beating. She counted again, unsure of herself.

Had she really slept? Or had she had tea with aging herons over at the Lyons tea room in the city center? She’d immediately thought of waking Doug. Perhaps he’d know where Clemence had gone. But decided against it.

Instead she scanned the area thouroughy, questioning the ants instead of eating them, she didn’t have the stomach for breakfast. She was gone all day. When she returned to their settlement in the evening she had fabricated a story to tell Doug and the children. One that would neither put the blame on her bad parenting, nor on her distrustful genes.

She told him that Clemence had been attacked by a wild cat, that she had sustained serious injuries and that the Doctors at the clinic had been unable to save her. He was distraught, asking to see his daughter, his eyes spilling with tears.

As a pedagogue and parent, Irma had decided that nobody would talk of Clemence. They would be a family of 6, and the 7th, if ever mentioned, would be put down as a figment of the children’s imagination. She thought of herself as a modern Mum with none disclosure parenting techniques. She thought she was protecting her children and herself from undue sorrow and regret. And yet she sensed her daughter was alive. She knew she would never have been able to tame that mischievous spirit, nor, truly, had she wanted to. Clemence represented the duck she had never dared to be.

Clemence the Insomniac Duckling - part 3

The sequence of events was as follows. With the season’s changing Mum and Dad had been forced to move their gaggle to a place where they could keep dry. They’d favoured shallow water and sheltered accommodation.

Relocating had proven quite the ordeal as the ducklings were still too young to fly. They’d finally settled for the night, and Irma and Doug had decided to take turns to guard their nest. First, Doug had checked on them, making sure that Clemence wasn’t faking sleep. She had the longest eyelashes of the lot, and they lay, restful, on her lower lid, indicating sound sleep.
Halfway through the night, Irma replaced Doug and, half asleep, checked on her brood. Despite her guarding duties, Mum had had trouble resisting sleep, exhausted by a day of moving. Her eyelids were pregnant with slumber and she had finally surrendered.

No sooner was that done, that Clemence had shot out of the bedroom. She swam as fast as she could into the moonlight. She was free. She was a dolphin, a fish, a shark and a boat. She was everything she’d ever wanted to be.

Clemence had started to develop unorthodox thoughts from within the egg. She had at a time managed to convince herself that she was a parrot, she’d make sounds that, in her head, were loud and sharp. She grew feathers that were blue and red, and her beak was long and decidedly hooked. She was also an otter with four legs and yacht with a motor.

Most pertinent of all had been her inability to rest. She was a curious sort, always feigning indifference to get away with mischief. Her life had, so far, been predictable. She was fed, loved, and number 7 in a family of 7. She’d long awaited this moment, when for the first time she’d make her entrance into the world as a steam ship.

She chose to take the form of this manmade machine because she felt invincible. Just like a ship, she’d gathered speed and sailed away, queen of the tide. She’d fantasized about this moment every night as she lay awake, unable to give in to sleep. She’d attempted her great escape once before but was too exposed.

On that fateful night, she’d hid in the shadows of the reeds and blended in with the rocks and pebbles, having practiced shallow breathing and prolonged immobility. She had heard of human rescues, but feared nothing as she wasn’t a duckling, but a steam boat with wings. As the night drew to a close, Clemence had rejoined the herons of Willow Pond: her ticket to freedom. She’d only looked over her shoulder once, when she thought she’d heard Paloma cry for her. But it was a duckling from another family, and no concern of hers.

Clemence the Insomniac Duckling - part 2

The photo developing service promises a 24-hour turn around and therefore has Mum drop her baking activities and waddle off to the city center at Willow Pond. Armed with an envelope full of memories, she returns home and, forgetting the pie in the oven, delves into chapters of ducklings, her heart aglow with that golden shine of motherhood.

She smiles at Max’s unruly quaff, at Paloma’s tendency to pose, at Deirdre inquisitive looks and Wilfred’s resemblance to his father. She takes out a pen and paper, and begins to chronicle the photos, putting down in writing the series of events and the dates at which they took place. There are 24 photos in the pack. The first series of seven date back to the science fair, and to Deirdre’s outstanding accomplishment. The next ten show the ducklings at play with the neighbour’s kids. The last six are a collection of portraits of each child at various times. She notes various detail down, such as Mona’s tendency to gain weight, making a mental note of portion sizes to serve her at dinner time. She also scribbles some suggestions for birthday cakes. But there’s one more photograph in the pack. It’s facing down, when all the others were organised upwards. She turns it over.

There she finds a frail and very young duckling. She immediately makes a note to return this photo to the shop jotting it down as a sorting mistake. But deep inside she recognizes those eyes, and the pain in her chest, the one she had lived with for seasons after the birth, is reignited. It’s a blurry photograph, but the mischief in the young duck’s eyes shines clearly through the lens.

She remembers taking this photo, back then still amused by Clemence’s wayward ways. That day, Doug and Mum had taken the kids out to learn to hunt. They’d chosen a secluded area of the pond for this exercise. They knew to watch out for Clemence’s distracted disposition and had therefore placed her at the head of the line. Wilfred had vehemently complained that he was the eldest and should therefore be at the head, but Mum and Dad hadn’t taken heed. They’d enjoyed a good day of hunting, and returned home at dusk to put the kids to bed. They’d all fallen asleep immediately, worn out by the day’s activities.

All except for Clemence. It’s at that moment that Irma had taken the photograph, eager to record her daughter’s willfulness, and amused at the growing resemblance with herself. That night Clemence had gone to sleep and Mum’s fears were abated. She could not have predicted what would happen next.

Clemence the Insomniac Duckling - part 1

It had been a proud day for the Willow family. Their youngest, Deirdre, was the first of the Willows not just to hand a project in on time, but to win third prize for it.

For the occasion, they gathered in front of the dining room mantel piece for a picture, recording: Deirdre age 7, Max age 7, Mona age 7, Philip age 7, Paloma age 7 and Wilfred age 7 – where age is counted in seasons. The photograph remained encased in the film spool for months as Mum struggled to find time to develop it. Finally, on the day their tax returns were due, she managed not just to pass by the post office, but also to drop the film off to be developed. She was eager to discover what other moments she’d captured over the months on her semi-automatic camera - or was semi-automatic a term used hunting guns? – she could never quite remember. She returned home that evening hopeful and purposeful having accomplished two missions on her to-do list.

Irma, as she’s once been called – at least till she became known as Mum to everyone, husband included – had been renowned down at Mirror Pond as the most beautiful mallard. She’d been quite the socialite, wasting away her days on the waterside in anticipation of night. She’d met Doug on one of her night swims, and though she’d been slightly inebriated at the time, she’d immediately seen in him the makings of a good, kind duck. It helped that he was handsome, in a stocky sort of way. They’d been quick to fall in love and move away from the bustle of Mirror Pond.

They’d chosen Willow Pond, where they became parents to 6 adorable ducklings, and were known, as of then, as the Willow family. Upon breaking the news of her pregnancy, Irma had been warned that only two or three of her gaggle would make it past ducklinghood. But she was infused with positivity, filled to burst with happy thoughts of a big, loud family. Doug doted on her, eager as well to see each one of their creations grow into a healthy duck.

On the day of their birth, the ducklings hatched one after the other, in sequence, programmed to come to life at a minute’s interval of one another. She remembers fondly how each egg shook, wobbled and cracked, revealing her most prized progeny. In her accounts of that day, Irma tells of the hatching of 6 eggs, citing Deirdre as the youngest and Wilfred as the oldest.