Always Duck

 'I'm not a recluse,' Mad said. 'I just never go anywhere or do anything.'

From The Parliament by Aimee Pokwatka 

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Welcome to autumn.

The rain paints its own sign. In Cornwall everything is bi-polar – you’re either climbing up or coming down. When the rain is heavy it cascades from out of water courses, run off pipes, gullies, and the sky. Final destination, the ocean.

Before the rain it’s quiet. Summer’s passed for the swans and most of them have taken flight elsewhere. Where I’m sitting (reading) there are only some ducks. Ducks are life’s extras. Mostly you don’t notice them around these parts. They’re not raucous like the gulls. They don’t have the main character energy of the swans. Swans are white – they want to stand out, because they’re the kings of their domain and they fear no one. Ducks are brown and they blend in with the scenery. They know their place and they know the best way to survive.

They go about their business. They’re small, graceful. No one pays them much attention. If I could attain a state of grace I’d be a duck too.

When the rain comes, it’s best to exit through the woods. Leaves have already fallen. Paths won’t need much rain before they turn to mud. In the woods the shadows are often your past self, moving through some other time.  But you’ll never meet them head on, because of some law or other that even the smart people can’t really explain.

I have always been here before.

If you’re lucky the rain will have eased by the time you make it out from the trees. Step back past bushes filled with unharvested blackberries, now turned rotten, and head up the sloping stairs to reach street level. Follow the road as it twists its way round from the creek to the river.

Ducks keep to the backwaters. They know their place. They usually seem happy. Content. It might not seem much, but it seems like quite a lot to me.

The river is wide, reaching by this point almost to the ocean. There are boats moored in parallel lines. Traffic rumbles across the Tamar bridge. Fields in the distance are still coloured like straw, but it won’t take much to revive them. Clouds gather like a bruise on the horizon. If you can’t outrun them, it’s better to wait it out. Another shower passes. There’s still further up to climb, but the rainwater’s making an opposite journey downwards. Feverish. In cascade.

It’s good weather for ducks you might think, but ducks hate the rain as much as the best of us. Rain masks the smell of predators. They’d prefer it to stay dry.

Time passes. The bridge is as high as you can go, suspended above the water, closer to the clouds than the land. A stiff breeze pushes you forwards. To the future. From one season to the next. Bi-polar. You’ve climbed the ladders. Now here come the snakes.