Murky Imaginations (Short Story)
A duckling that lost its way…
‘Having an imagination is a death sentence at the pond’; A warning told to all the young ducklings of the forest. You never know when your worst nightmare will crawl from the depths of the still water. Monsters as slippery and sinister as Satan himself; all laying quiet beneath the muck. Waiting for their next meal to find its way to open waters. Any creature with half a brain knows to stay put during the night. All except Delly.
Poor, sweet Delly. The pitter pat of webbed feet and the ruffling of feathers cuts through the faint splashes of water and the quick buzz of the bugs dancing around the night sky. Delly was never alone. Ever. Her mother always led her and her siblings to the safety of the nest before a tragedy could occur. This wasn’t supposed to happen to her. She wasn’t supposed to be out here alone. Unfortunately, curiosity is an inescapable force of nature that happens to the best of us.
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The driftwood looked so peaceful. She imagined herself a frog with a needle; sitting on a lone branch in the water, telling stories while knitting a lovely blanket for her coming grandchildren, who are still rolling merrily in their tight, slimy eggs under the water.
Against her better judgment, she followed the old frog. To hear more stories of the monsters down in the deep. She squealed with joy as she leaped from wood to wood. The weight of her small, feathery body created ripples in the water; stirring awake whatever sleepy beasts curled up in the mud.
She relaxed on the final piece of driftwood. Listening to the frog tell the most wonderful stories of heroism and love. Simple stories. The kind her mother would tell her every night before bed. The kind she would beg to hear again and again just to listen to the ending. Eventually, even her mother got tired of the same story every night. But Delly didn’t get upset. This amazing old frog stepped in every night to tell the story again. And again. And again.
She couldn’t take her eyes off her friend. Even as the water ran darker from beneath the wood she stood on. The world stilled for poor Delly. A moment of realization as sharp jaws rose up around her like flowers during spring.
The old frog had stopped telling the story by now. Delly watched the illusion of a friend disappear in front of her eyes; an air of disappointment surrounded her. She didn’t get to finish the story. Though, that didn’t matter. Not anymore. The eager jaws snapped shut, dragging poor Delly to the murky pits of the pond.
Perhaps her mother was right. Having an imagination is a death sentence at the pond.
