When I was 10 or so, I killed a duck.
It was a fucking accident alright?
My friend Amanda and I were playing in her backyard and behind her house was a canal. In Florida, we have a lot of canals. In said canals, there are water meters that look like ducks, very realistic coloring and whatnot. So. Amanda and I are in her backyard, swimming maybe, or perhaps.. I don’t even know, to be honest. All I know is we were in the backyard when we spot this duck meter in the canal. Amanda was a tough cookie even as a kid and she calls me out.
“You throw like a girl, Anaïs,” she said, her freckles dark in the sunlight.
“I am a girl. Why isn’t that okay?” I sighed thinking about my terrible aim.
“I bet you couldn’t hit that duck out there.” She set her mouth into a prim line and there we were.
“It’s so far away, that’s not fair.” I knew I couldn’t hit that target even if I tried.
“You just know you can’t hit it.” What a bitch. She still is one from what I hear.
“Fine. Give me a ball or something.” I put my hands on my nonexistent hips.
She looked around and found no balls so she picked up a big rock from the side of the wooden fence and handed it to me.
“There you go, use this,” she said.
The rock was pretty big and I had to hold it with both hands. I didn’t want to do this, I knew I would miss and be laughed at forever but Amanda’s smug face made me swallow hard and walk towards the edge of the canal. Amanda followed close behind and stood behind me as I lifted the rock in my right hand, feeling the tiny muscles in my arm work overtime. I exhaled and threw it in the direction of the duck as hard as I could.
We watched it fly in the air and I realized halfway through its flight that it was going to hit. I was so excited, I had never hit anything I aimed for in my entire life. This was going to be glorious. Amanda looked shocked as she watched the rock head for the duck. I smiled as it hit its target only to hear the most awful noise my ears have ever been witness to.
KWAHSUIEWHRIO!*&YT#^R76TYOIUJ9OPMOIiujkshdfbeudibc98Y!U(HiuJKHP(&*Gv87ybi!!?!NU!Y!(*
That was the noise the duck made when the rock hit. Yes, the duck. Not the duck meter but the duck. Amanda and I stood in horror as it flapped around crazily for a full minute before it sunk underwater, water bubbles left in its wake. We looked at each other, hoping that the duck was just swimming maybe or getting a drink of water but no. We stood for a half hour and no duck. Amanda and I walked from the edge of the canal into her house in silence. We sat on the living room to play video games and didn’t say a word to each other the rest of the day. My mom picked me up after dinner and it was never mentioned again.
I had nightmares about a zombie duck coming to attack me for weeks. It would just quack at me but i knew exactly what it was saying: “You are a duck murdering bitch, Anaïs”. I didn’t tell anyone about these dreams or about the “duck murder” for years. When I finally did, the reactions ranged from hysterical laughter to horror. My mom is convinced that this is why ducks don’t seem to like me, they always give me the evil eye when I see them out in nature. I’m waiting for a bunch of them to corner me in a dark alley and let me have it. Fucking ducks.
But really, I feel terrible. It was a terrible accident and as a result, I can’t watch Ducktales or Mighty Ducks without feeling like an asshole. That Gordon Bombay is giving me judgmental looks that he should be reserving for Pacey. I don’t know. This isn’t really my fault but Amanda’s. Yeah, that’s what I’m going to tell people. That works, right?
