A Short Story By J.L. Smith

OK, here it is I decided that since I didnt' have anything new to share in my life unless you want to hear the gross stuff, which I'm sure you don't I would post a short story I wrote last year, It was a dream I had while I was pregnant with Mikey.  I don't have any antics or reasoning behind it I just felt inspired by it and wrote it out. After all didn't Twilight start out as a dream? I'm not saying this is the next best seller I'm just saying this is me and my writing. The sketch came from http://30sketchesproject.blogspot.com/, just so you all don't think I'm more talented than i really am, 

The Viveran Duck

By J.L. Smith

She began her life as we all do, in darkness. Completely dark struggling for that since of something more beyond what we can see, Pushing, struggling determined, then finally triumphantly light. Though it was only a crack showing through, it was enough to instill hope that she could free herself from the darkness. She began to peck and squirm, faster and harder she continued for what seemed to be an eternity. Then she was free, the light was far more powerful than she had anticipated. It was bright so much so she could not see. But she did not worry it was warm and dried her soft downy feathers. Then there was a shadow cast across her, startled she squawked, which from one so small as her it was merely a pip. 

  "Quiet now," said the shadow. "Welcome to the world. I am delighted you are here. Come with me and we I shall teach you all there is to learn."

   She shook her head and blinked her eyes. Looking up she saw the most beautiful creature standing before. Her eyes were as black as the darkness; her beak was wide and orange. Her feathers which seemed to lay flat to her skin were the most brilliant green. "And what shall I call you?" she asked meekly.

  "Some call me Duck. But you can call me Mother"

  "Mother", asked she, "what shall you call me?"

  "You? You are Viveran. Now come before the darkness comes and we sleep"

  So Viveran became a student, and Mother the teacher. Through the day Mother taught Viveran the importance of the water. How cool it felt to their legs in the summer and how fresh it tasted when they were thirsty. That there were creatures beneath the water, fish, they were there to supply them with food. One had only to beak the surface and snatch one out. Mother told Viveran the stories of the light, how it brought them forth from the darkness in the beginning and will bring them to its majesty in the end. How all creatures big or small awake to it each new day, and answers to its call in the end.

  The days passed on in quiet peace as all summer days do, until Viveran had grown into a large duck just like Mother.  It was then that Mother told Viveran she had no more to teach her and that all she needed to know she would learn from the light. With this they bid each other a farewell, and began new lives separate from each other. 

  Viveran began each new day with a walk from her home, which had now become the trunk of a tall oak tree, to the water, there she would lazily swim and drink water if she felt so inclined to she would flip down and gobble at fish or two. It was a day like this that her life turned around. Coming back up from the water with a rather large fish. Too large for her eat actually she didn't know what to do. It squirmed and retched in her beak. Mother had taught her that all you catch you must eat, regardless of size. It was disrespectful not to do so. 

  "Stop it I say" said she to the fish. "Why do you squirm so?"

  "Fear" screamed the fish in pain.

  "Do not fear the light," Viveran began

  "It is not the light I fear" the fish interrupted, "but the darkness that follows it"

The darkness thought Viveran, what nonsense. This fish must not have had a mother but itself to learn the ways of life. "Oh, now there will be no darkness. This is what the light intends for you to do. It will come and you will feel no more pain". The fish trashing less violently now spoke only in a whisper.

 "No, I see it now the dark falls slowly on me. See, see it coming it is my death that brings it". The fish moved no more.

Viveran shook with fear, looking both to her left and right, the now dead fish still in her mouth; she saw no darkness, the light still high above her, still warm, still bright, still showing all its majesty. But if she saw no darkness and the fish had, then it must be true. She spat the fish out, it floated motionless on its side. Then the most mournful sound ever in this world was heard. 

  Days had passed since her encounter with the fish. She had not eaten nor drank anything since. Her mind seemed to be crazed; all Mother had taught her was foolishness. There was no light in the end; the fish saw darkness overtake the light. Mother had taught Viveran that everything was living, the ground she stood on the grass that provided her bed. That all things would answer to the lights call. She feared the darkness more than anything, thus so, she refused to bring the darkness onto anything else. She simply sat there day after day, questioning all that she thought she knew. 

Viveran.