Decoy / The Ducking 

Ella Pringle

P  R  O  L  O  G  U  E     T O     T  H  E     D  U  C  K  I  N  G 

 

Ducks must be very productive individuals since we need to get up so promptly to find them. It’s the earliest morning I’ve ever seen. Neither light nor dark. I can only assume we’re trying to catch onto them before they disperse for their busy days. Grandfather once told us that a duck he was shooting for, dodged the bullet by holding up its briefcase as a shield. My aunt, a lawyer, had been quick to question how he kept his papers dry. I’d only stared in cynicism. 

It’s a high-kneed trudge that propels us across the empty fields. In this grey area between night and morning, the fog sleeps low to the ground, rolling its underside on the wet turf. Sleeves are pulled down and trouser cuffs are rolled in weak barriers against the dew-heavy grass that wipes itself against us. This band of men that I traipse with differ from me. Warped from hard labour and grizzled in a light char of cigar smoke, they haul guns, nets, and bags over bent shoulders. I carry only this singular wooden duck. They tell me it’s a critical decoy; floated out onto the water, it’s supposed to lull real ducks into a false sense of security, draw them in. At first, I scoffed. Filling a funeral service with pews full of mannequins wouldn’t placate me in my opinion that the deceased was not widely liked. But ducks must be easier fooled. 

Reaching the precipice of the sedated lake, the cold banks on its weedy shore. The spaniel hound comes to stand next to me, droop-tongue breathing, white snout pointed out over the water. The men throw down their things. Boots press down the grass. I watch their breath spell out a frantic Morse code among them as it lingers in the air. Crickets and birds turn away. Placing the wooden duck down, the water cradles the bottom of the decoy, and it rocks until settling. Paralysed on the still water, it will take a decisive push to send it out. The rivets of my soft fingers grasp for the chiselled hardwood and press it away. It looks at me without seeing. It floats, frozen, out onto the water. 

 

 

 

E  P  I  L  O  G  U  E     T O     T  H  E      D  U  C  K  I  N  G 

 

How can a bird, a dead bird, have such glistening despair in its eyes? Those eyes will be replaced and glued open. These bodies will be stuffed until their chests almost burst. Never to rest again. Never to rest again am I, having carried their carcasses through the light of the day. The bodies of stone-gutted ducks hang from my shoulders and waist. It’s their lukewarm bodies and flaccid necks that swing in time with my stagger. Their course rubber feet press wet against my back, and the small iridescent feathers of their wing tips glisten in desperate flashes of green and blue. 

The men amble far ahead, excited teenagers again. They’re alight. Their guffaws and the pop of their lips splay across the open meadows and the spaniel trots alongside them through the grasses. Punctuating their reverent reenactments with a rugged bark, the hound lifts its snout to the air, bright red-stained and wet.  

I walk the last few fields alone. They open up here, a quiet expanse of small flowers that seem to hold their breath as I pass. Though the ducks are unloaded from my shoulders, I still feel as though they are draped over me, like an exhibition of man’s uncontested dominance. Looking out across the way, I’m taken by a form up ahead. Forearm shielding my face from the poignant morning sun, I make out the figure of a man standing in the middle of the field. A stranger I suppose. I walk further towards him. Still and prone in the grass, I close in. Crickets and birds turn away. I’m face to face with him now. It’s confusion that inhabits my face as I reach out. The rivets of my soft fingers grasp the cold, hard shine of the mannequin.

Author: Ella Pringle

Ella Pringle is a writer and creative professional living in Brisbane/Meanjin, and completely tertiary studies in the field of creative writing. Her short stories and poetry have been read aloud for TEDx, the QUT Literary Salon, and local Brisbane exhibitions. She’s also been published by Whynot.org, Glass Magazine, and ScratchThat Magazine, among others, in written form. Currently completing a series of short stories around the absence of social connective norms, Ella looks forward to the opportunity for further studies in the field.

Artist: Coco Thompson and Ella Pringle

Edited by: Nyah Marsden and Lara Madeline Rand

Editors: Coco Thompson and Tia Shang