One of our readers, Amy, sent this to me. She says that her fable describes the current world situation quite well. I agree. Being a duck means freedom!
The Magician's Duck Pond
Copyright Amy DeNies
Once upon a time there lived a poor magician. He was a very talented magician, but he was not very good at making money. He often went to bed without any dinner at all. One afternoon on his way home from a performance he was very hungry. He met a hunter on the road and greeted him.
"I'm on my way to go hunting," the hunter said, "If you have a copper piece, I will save you a duck." The magician very much wanted one, but did not have any copper pieces at all. He might have asked the hunter to save him one anyway, or offered something else in return, but the magician did not like to ask for help. He merely said nothing and went home.
While he was sitting at his empty table, listening to his stomach grumble, he had an idea. In his magic show, his best trick was to convince a person in the audience to believe that he or she was a duck. The magician considered that if he could convince a duck to be something else for a short time, he might be able to catch his own duck for dinner.
He went out to a pond near his house where he found a duck who happened to be fishing for his own dinner. It must not have been a very smart duck, because it was taking no notice of him, when it should have flown far away. But the magician was able to get close to the duck and began using his trick. This time instead of convincing a man or woman to behave like a duck, he convinced the duck that it was a lily pad. The duck sat very still on top of the water, not moving at all. The magician stood there for a while just looking at it, until his stomach grumbled again.
"Hello there, lily pad."
"Hello there," said the duck.
"What beautiful petals you have on your blossoms. Seeing you float on top of the lake like that makes me feel very tranquil."
"I'm happy to have brightened your day," said the duck, "but it has just occurred to me that lily pads aren't supposed to talk. Am I really a lily pad? You say that I have blossoms, and yet somehow I remember flying. Are you quite sure that I am a lily pad?"
The magician could see that his trick had limitations, even on ducks that were not very smart. But the magician was very curious and so he did not simply kill the duck to make it his dinner, instead he began to manipulate the surface of the pond. As he did so, the duck became agitated but continued to hold still. The magician continued to manipulate the pond water so that it tossed the duck this way and that. Sometimes the duck would lose its balance and be splashed unpleasantly. The duck became extremely disturbed and cried out.
"Please, dear sir, something is making the pond very turbulent! This is not very tranquil! Can you help me?"
"You are right," said the magician. "This is not very tranquil. I have a special ability to calm the surface of water, and since you are my friend and you have asked me so nicely, I will settle the water for you so that we might enjoy this evening more calmly." The magician stopped manipulating the surface of the pond, and the water was once again still. This put the duck at ease again, and seeing his opportunity, the magician drowned the duck and cooked it up for his dinner.
The magician had never been hunting, so he lacked the sense of justice of a true hunter. He did not understand how unkind he had been to gain the trust of a duck by tricking it into thinking that it was a lily pad. What is more, he had no understanding of nature, so he did not understand what an unnatural thing it was for a duck to drown. He did not know that he had been cruel. The magician was instead, very proud of himself and believed that tricking the duck was the most clever thing he had ever done. He did not understand that cleverness is not the same as wisdom. Every evening from then on the magician would practice his trick on ducks and eat them for dinner. He became very good at his trick.
Always having been a poor man, the magician now wondered if he might be able to use his idea to further advantage. He began to barter the ducks to the people of his town, and as he became more greedy, he had a very clever and cruel idea, the most clever and cruel idea he had ever had. That day he happened to see a very large flock of ducks flying towards his pond. He used another magician's trick to drawn them to the pond, and then practiced his original trick of convincing them that they were lily pads.
The magician had become so good at his trick that most of the ducks didn't even remember their previous experiences of flying and swimming. Indeed, most of the ducks tried very hard to be tranquil at all times, not daring to move lest they stir up the turbulence of the pond. The magician had convinced them that it was very important to hold very still, and that only he had the power to calm the water after it became disturbed. Most of the ducks considered it extremely lucky that every time the water became agitated, the magician happened to be visiting. Some feared that even blinking might set the whole pond into uncontrollable motion. However, a few of the ducks could remember what it was like to fly and whispered to each other about their memories as if they were a shared fantasy. The ducks who were very fearful chastised the whispering ducks, saying that they must have been dreaming, that they should ignore the dreams, that if they weren't careful, they might start the waves again, and that it would serve them right to get splashed if they were going to be so silly.
The magician continued to agitate the pond's surface every evening in order to keep the ducks from remembering what they were. As planned, he would take a duck or two from the pond every night. Sometimes a nearby duck would see him do it, and when he didn't bother drowning the witness, that particular duck would whisper to those nearby about what it saw. But as with the remembering ducks, the witness duck would be shushed by the more fearful ones, who were not just afraid of the waves but also such a dark idea could be the truth. Indeed, to a duck who fears waves, being purposefully drowned by its protector is even worse than a nightmare; it would be insanity. For after all, what power does a lily pad have to prevent itself from being plucked from a pond?
One day after dreaming of flying, one of the remembering ducks began to think seriously about the situation. This particular duck had been taking part in regular whispering sessions with the other remembering ducks. They had been bolstering each other with wonderful stories, dreams they were considered, of flying into sunsets, and swimming joyfully in crystal clear springs without fear of being splashed. This duck began to wonder about the magician who visited them every evening when the waters became turbulent again. It seemed a funny coincidence. He began to watch the magician, quietly and carefully, not drawing too much attention to himself. After some time spent observing the way the water only became disturbed when the magician was touching it, the observing duck began to figure things out. He spread his observations to his fellow remembering ducks, who spread it to most of the rest of the pond. At first, it seemed like these observations might be ignored like the dreams of flying, but since it was based on evidence that any duck could observe if they had the courage, it took hold among many of the ducks.
Soon, even the dark stories of the drownings, which had previously been confined only to the edge of the pond, were circulating and it seemed that every duck had an opinion on the stories. Since opinions aren't something that lily pads often have, this seemed to change something about the pond.
Suddenly, many of the ducks were taking the stories much more seriously, and they whispered all day and night when the magician was gone about what could be done about it, if it were true. Although they had figured out the magician's trick with the waves, and what he intended for them, they had not yet accepted their power as ducks. The magician had done such a good job with his original trick that they still were thinking like lily pads. Some ducks even suggested that they all just try to enjoy the tranquility of the pond so that, when the time came to be drowned, they would have at least appreciated their time in the pond. Many of the ducks wished they had never heard the stories at all, so that they might have enjoyed the pond's tranquility without having to dread their eventual end.
Then one day the observing duck flapped his wings. He didn't remember trying to, it just happened, and suddenly everything about being a duck came back to him. He took off and flew into the sky watching his friends from above. The other ducks nearby saw that he must have been a duck all along, and that even though he had moved quite a lot, he had not disturbed the water. Many of them began to move their wings, and before long almost all of the ducks were in the sky. Not only did they remember what it was like being ducks, they now would never forget again, and from then on all ducks would always know they were ducks, and not lily pads, except for one duck who remained in the pond with his eyes tightly closed.
This one duck was exceptionally fearful and refused to consider that he might be a duck, because it would mean feeling very stupid to have been tricked so thoroughly. He lived the rest of his life in the pond believing that he was a lily pad.
The magician returned that evening to find the one remaining duck. Having lost his taste for duck after overindulging for a very long time, he did not wish to eat it. And having become very unpopular on account of ruining the business of duck hunting in his town, he had no one to offer it to. He tried to set it free, explaining to the inconvincible duck that it had all been a trick, but the duck would not believe him. That is when the magician realized what a cruel thing he had done to the ducks. He may not have been a very wise man, but he was not evil, and so this made him very sorry. He spent the rest of his life as a vegetable farmer, apologizing to each carrot as he plucked it from the ground to be his dinner, and even to every weed he removed from his vegetable bed. The inconvincible duck became his best friend, to whom he made regular offerings of vegetable stew.
As for the observant duck, he went back to being a duck, flying into sunsets and splashing joyfully in clear springs. Now he knew what a wonderful thing it was to be a duck instead of a lily pad, so he appreciated his freedom even more.
