Taryn's POV:
I think we're all like ducks.
Gliding idly along the surface of life, occasionally bumping into each other, more often than not drifting apart. From the perspective of some being above us, not an omnipotent God, but something, something that could see us, but not know us, surely we seemed like ducks. Fine, gentle. Swimming along, getting on with our days as if we had nothing else to do but exist.
But looking below the surface, the existence of human consciousness causes a frantic and ceaseless effort. We splash urgently, desperately, fighting against every other duck to find our place in this world. And sometimes, someone like me has a damaged foot, and in every effort to keep up with the slow-moving flow of waterfowl, we are left scattered, alone. And in these moments, when nobody turns back against the flowing river of time for us, we have to choice but to stop swimming, and slowly, gently, sink to the riverbed.
And so life went. A series of frantically panicking, working extra hard with my broken feet, struggling against the pain in a useless attempt to carry on surviving. Life felt like trying to reach the end of a river, but the river kept going even after you died, and soon the river would be choked with duck corpses.
Defeatist, I know. But true.
It was hard to find the exact time I'd broken my foot. I couldn't tell which rock I'd hit it on, or whether it was a culmination of all of the rocks I hit it on. All I knew was that I was 16 and with all of the pain that was searing through my brain, the instrument that was meant to keep me paddling but just made the process infinitely more difficult, had left me feeling quite numb.
But I worked so hard that, to everyone else, I looked like another duck, swimming along, totally unbothered and fine.
Of course, there is hope. A duck to keep nudging you gently along as your foot heals, a bird in the distance, bobbing on the silvery water's surface, that keeps you swimming, who makes you forget the pain searing through your brain and live, for a while, like any other duck.
And that person, was Alice.
YOU ARE READING
Swimming Ducks
General FictionAlice and Taryn have been best friends since they first joined Eastcroft Grammar at 11 years old. But when Taryn begins to think a little too much about her best friend, and Alice seems to be growing close to her every day, will the friendship crumb...
