The Lost Little Duck

This story has been written in response to L.C. Schäfer's proposal to spend 2024 losing my mind...sorry, I mean, choosing to write a microfiction story every day, making 366 stories for every day of this lovely leap year. You can check her original story out here:

Prompt number thirteen:

National Rubber Duckie Day - the picture is the prompt too

***

On the river bank sits a forlorn little duck, nestled next to a moss covered stone. Around the top of his head, he has gained a rubber band which has given him an angelic look or some might say, the look of a determined tennis player. He is showing the scars of his prolonged outdoor existence. He has a gaze that invites sympathy and makes him seem forthright in its directness. He doesn't look uncomfortable but he does look out of place.

His name is Henry and he is the rubber duck of Ella. Ella misses him very much. She used to like to have Henry swim with her in her bath water. Ella used to like the stoical way that Henry would listen to her chatter, never interrupting or offering comment and always agreeing with her. She liked to dunk him under the bubbles and marvelled at how he was always open-eyed when she couldn't keep hers open for toffee. She liked his sturdy little shape and the way that he perched on the side of the bath.

She lost Henry when she allowed him to have an adventure that Daddy thought would be exciting for Henry. There was a duck race where people could use either a rubber duck provided by the event organisers or, if they felt like they had a particularly lucky duck, they were allowed to bring their own.

Ella initially liked the idea of Henry winning a race until she saw ALL of the ducks that would be racing and how crowded the river was where Henry would be bobbing at speed. If she'd have known how exposed he would be and how he would get lost in a mass of yellow rubber, she would never have agreed to Daddy giving Henry to the man in the high vis..

Henry didn't win that day and he wasn't there at the end of the race. Ella would come to remember this day as the most miserable of her life for years.

But Henry remains optimistic. He knows he'll be found. Eventually.

Because he's ridden this river before and been lost and he was saved then.

By a little girl called Ella.

***

366 words

I love this picture of this little duck. For some reason, it pulled at my heartstrings and when I found out that today is National Rubber Duckie Day in America (thank you, Ernie from Sesame Street, surely?), this was the picture from which a story had to be made.

I can also remember as a child losing things that were precious to me, never to be found again and how acutely I felt it and so, I could relate to Ella losing her bath buddy. Funny the attachment that we humans have to inanimate objects, isn't it?

For the list of prompts that L.C. has provided for January to get you moving, if you want to partake, go to the link below. It also provides links to everybody else who has joined in the challenge:

Thanks for stopping by. If you've read this story, please do leave a comment as I love to interact with my readers.

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