Ducks

I shouldn’t have laughed.

I could tell from her face

that she was traumatized by the event.

I certainly saw the tragedy in her story.

She and her (ex) boyfriend

find an injured duck on the roadside,

taking it home

and nursing it back to health;

only to release it back into the wild

at some random pond

and witness the duck get torn to shreds

by the ducks native to that pond.

I cried. Cried from laughter

because it was one of the saddest stories I’d ever heard–

one so poignant that I could envision her sharing it

in a creative writing class as a short story.

It was sad as hell and I felt bad for her.

But that didn’t keep me from seeing the humor in it also.

~Edward Austin Robertson

Tags: Ducks, Edward Austin Robertson