Livora Gracely

The duckling had a question.

It arrived shortly after breakfast.

And immediately complicated the morning.

“Why am I black?”

The other ducklings looked down at themselves.

Then at him.

Then back at themselves.

Nobody seemed qualified to answer.

Their mother continued walking.

This suggested confidence.

Or distraction.

The ducklings could never tell.

For several days the mystery remained unsolved.

The black duckling developed theories.

Perhaps he was adopted.

Perhaps he had been assembled incorrectly.

Perhaps he was a rare collector’s edition.

The possibilities were endless.

His siblings became interested.

One proposed that he might be secretly famous.

Another suggested he was a limited release.

The third simply wanted lunch.

Eventually the ducklings approached their mother.

“Why does he look different?”

Mother Duck thought about this.

For nearly three seconds.

Which was unusually thorough.

Then she replied:

“Different from what?”

The ducklings turned around.

There were ducks everywhere.

White ducks.

Brown ducks.

Spotted ducks.

One duck appeared to be mostly mud.

The black duckling considered this.

“So I’m normal?”

Mother Duck shrugged.

“None of you are helping my definition of normal.”

The matter seemed settled.

At least until the following week.

That’s when the black duckling discovered he could swim.

The others could swim too.

Which was disappointing.

Several months later he learned to waddle.

Again, everyone else already knew how.

By autumn he had reached an important conclusion.

Being different had sounded much more impressive before the evidence arrived.

The family continued walking together.

One black.

Four yellow.

One mother.

Zero complaints.

Which, according to Mother Duck, was exactly how a successful duck family should look.