When I see Candy Buttons (the multi-colored dots on a strip of paper) I think of the Philadelphia Zoo and riding a train for the first time. When I taste blood I think of the time my dad pulled out my first loose tooth. Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Condensed Soup reminds me of the pork chops my dad used to make that were essentially drowning in an indescribable, chunky, gray sludge, which we subsequently ate every night for what felt like a year. The deafening sound of cicadas makes me think of the summer we visited our second cousins in Sioux City, Iowa. The sweet rubbery smell of a My Little Pony reminds me of birthdays and Christmases. Green ribbons remind me of summer camp. Oatmeal makes me think of chicken pox. Big Red gum reminds me of long car rides. And dry ice makes me think of all the times my sister and I pretended to be witches or mad scientists.These are just brief instances, little snapshots of the past that pop into my head without warning. But none of the aforementioned memory triggers compare to the one I think of and recount most often.
(Note: The way I remember this happening might be different from what actually happened, so I guess you could say this is strictly from my seven-year-old point of view.)
It was newly summer, the end of the school year, and we were hosting a pool party for my second grade class. We lived in Powhatan, Virginia, a mostly rural (at the time) area, where it was headline news when the first stoplight was installed, and close encounters with wild animals and nature were pretty common. We also had a lot of animals of our own—or, as my dad would say, “it was a fucking zoo”—cats (which were endlessly fertile, thus a constant litter of kittens), pigeons, dogs, horses, rabbits, a couple goldfish, hamsters, guinea pigs, and ducklings were all part of our ever-growing brood. At the time of this pool party, the ducklings were the most new and exciting addition to our “zoo.” There were two ducklings, and during a forced break from swimming, I led a group of my classmates down to the ducklings’ cage, which was just beyond the pool, to show them these adorable, fuzzy, chirping creatures; however, when we reached our destination, there was nothing but an empty cage. I remember feeling panicked, thinking that it was my fault—had I irresponsibly left the door open? But, alas, this was not the case, for one of the ducklings lay dead on the ground—and it wasn’t in an ‘oops, it fell’ sort of way, it was in a ‘who done it’ sort of way.
I took off, searching for my dad, because surely he would know how to save the duckies. I ran up the side of our house screaming, “Daddy! Daaaad! DAAA-AAAD! HELP! SOMETHING’S HAPPENED TO THE DUCKS!” My dad, used to dramatic outbursts whether it was a dead baby duck or a dismembered Barbie, told me he would take care of it and to go back to the party. While he was problem-solving the duckling situation, I ran off to tell everyone about the tragedy unfolding, but I didn’t get far before I heard a few screams and my dad yelling. I ran around the pool and up to the side of the house where my dad had been, thinking someone must have found the missing duckling. But this was not the case, for there it was, the culprit of all evil, the monster, the murderer of my ducklings: a seven-foot long black snake with a large, duck-like lump just past its head (I’d say neck, but that doesn’t seem accurate). My dad was holding the monster by the tail as if it was a giant fish; he even had that proud predator smile, the one you see on fisherman in those 8” x 10” pictures encased in frames that have “Catch of the Day” engraved across the top. I was instantly horrified. I had seen, and likely tortured, many small garden snakes before, but I had never seen a snake as immense as the beast that ate my duckies. At this point my dad was too sick of the “zoo” to even entertain the idea of getting more ducks, and I don’t doubt that he experienced some sense of relief in their passing, but he still tried to make me feel better, telling me it was okay because the big, bad snake was dead now so I didn’t have to worry. He had to chop the snake into pieces with a shovel in order to fit it into the garbage. Then I ate a popsicle and went swimming.
Now my dead ducklings haunt me every time I go to a park with a pond, or when I walk my dog along the path in our neighborhood where ducks occasionally flutter in the puddles, or when duck is on the menu at a restaurant, or when someone mentions snakes. But sometimes it’s not even duck or snake-related, sometimes I’m folding laundry, or brushing my teeth, or writing a blog post. Perhaps it was the lack of resolution, the eagerness to move past the devastating murder of my ducklings, which has resulted in automatic playback of this memory. It was this weekend that I found out my dad’s version of this story is much different than my own, but that only seems to add to the trauma (I suppose it also confirms my ability to dramatize any event, as if I needed further proof).
Maybe resolution lies in the fact that my dad’s story is different than mine, even though in his version the ducklings are still murdered by a giant black snake, which he then killed (he confirms the whole chopping it up with a shovel part too), but he claims I wasn’t the one to discover the duckling homicide. Maybe the spirits of my duckies can’t rest until I do something to resolve their untimely deaths. Maybe I can’t rest until I do something to make myself feel better about their murders. I’ve considered a few options like, getting new ducklings and caring for them to adulthood (but that won’t work because my dog will surely eat them), or donating to a duck preservation society (but I’m practically a charity case myself so that seems unreasonable), or maybe I could buy a snake and turn it into a vegetarian before releasing it back into the wild so that it can teach other murderous snakes a lesson (but that seems to require a specific skill set, which I’m not really interested in acquiring).
I suppose a certain amount of unrest concerning this memory is inevitable. I guess I’ll just eat a popsicle and go swimming. Again.
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