The Ugly Duckling

The Ugly Duckling
By: Exile

It was an early spring on most accounts as new life began to emerge onto the peaceful pond. Mother Duck was so proud to watch her chicks emerge from their eggs one by one. And while she watched with pride she noticed that one egg looked slightly different from the rest. An irregular size and shape for a duck egg to be sure, but she watched with baited breath to see her baby emerge into the world. The other ducklings lay exhausted from their escape from their shells as the last little duckling pushed away the shell from his face.

His mother knew he was different from the other ducklings, but she loved him the way any mother would love her child.

The days past and the little ducklings grew to little puffs of yellow fuzz, all but the last to hatch, and the duckling that the other ducks called Uggy. Every day the other ducklings would find new and creative ways to tease him.

One day as Uggy waddled back to his mother with tears running down his misshapen bill.

“Mommy,” he whimpered. “Why do the other ducklings tease me?”

“They tease you because you’re different,” she said with hesitation. “And when something is different it make others uncomfortable.”

“But why am I different?” he asked.

“You just are,” she sighed. “Look at all the different creatures here in the pond, they’re different from us, but to each other they look normal.”

Uggy looked out over the pond and saw a set of swans lazily paddling by.

“Oh, now I see!” Uggy exclaimed and began to paddle out across the pond.

A great deal of time passed and soon all the ducklings had grown out of their duckling phases. They paddled lazily around as grown ducks do and talked of things that grown ducks talk about. And then, from the far side of the pond a stranger they thought they had never seen before paddled their way. The ducks all froze, their bills hanging agape. The stranger continued to paddle past them all, holding his head high. He paddled right behind the mother duck who was lazily eating some water grass.

“Hello mother.” Uggy said holding his head up high.

The mother duck turned and spat out the pond grass in shock at the sight of the full-grown Uggy.

“I have come home a beautiful swan,” Uggy announced for everyone to hear.

Slowly a chuckle began to emerge from the other ducks, the few chuckles turned into an uproarious laughter. Confused, Uggy frantically looked around at the other ducks then back at his mother.

“Mama, why are they still laughing at me?” Uggy asked, choking back the lump in his throat.
“Because dear,” she said softly. “You’re not a swan, just a really ugly duck.”

Exile

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