The Ugly Duck

There once was an ugly duckling who was actually a swan. I'm sure you've heard that story. This story is about an ugly duckling who grew up to be an ugly duck. When all of the other birds encouraged her to get out of town, she did. She waddled to the next pond and the birds there called her ugly as well. Everywhere she went she was still herself, and she was still ugly. She was very lonely, and very sad. Imagine, no one would quack with her. No one would wanted to swim with her. She was alone.

Now, I wish this story changed. I wish I could tell you that the ugly duck was also incredibly intelligent, or remarkably brave, but she wasn't any of those things. The only special thing about her was her ugliness. She did become quite stubborn and tough throughout the years. She learned to fight and stand up for herself, but she remained an outcast.

There were good days, of course. She enjoyed leisurely paddles through glorious dawns, particularly tasty morsels of river-weed and the occasional winnings of stale bread from children. She didn't understand the children's comments ("Mommy, is that thing a duck?"), but even if she had she wouldn't have minded.

Eventually, the ugly duck grew old. As an old duck, young ducks no longer expected her to be handsome, and so they treated her the same way that they treated all elders, with a bit of fear, a bit of reverence and a lot of indifference. But the old duck had gotten used to being special, and now that her ugliness had been neutralized she lost her identity. She stared at her reflection with curiosity, "Am I not as ugly today as I was yesterday?" She deliberately swam through muck to try to maintain a certain level of repulsiveness.

When she died, not one duck cared. Her body floated into some reeds where it was devoured by a pack of water rats, who found her stringy, but redeemingly fatty. Soon, all that remained of the ugly duck was a single gleaming bone suspended on top of the water by the reeds.