The Wood Ducks

Welcome to the Stuffed Fabulous on Air, audio commentaries by Jeffrey Grosshans from the

website www.stuffedfabulous.com.

These commentaries present an independent point of view in the form of original fables

and parables on psychological, social, political, spiritual, and philosophical questions of

today.

Today, the ultimate moral or lesson of each tale is left to listeners to decide.

The following story didn't just happen yesterday.

The Wood Ducks

Once a pair of wood ducks grew old together.

It had been a long life they'd shared, a life not without its mysteries.

In truth, love, owing so much to chance already, might never have brought the two of them together

at all.

Being born continents apart in the wide scattering of wood duck populations made the likelihood

of their ever meeting in the first place remote beyond calculation.

And what circumstances or destinies must ultimately have carried them towards one another could

only be surmised by the other ducks on their lake.

They were a curious couple in the eyes of many, no doubt about it.

These two didn't just mate for life like other wood ducks, but often appeared so utterly

focused on each other as to be unaware that any other ducks were even around.

They might come out of their mutual trance every once in a while and fall in with the

flock as it traced familiar patterns over the lake, only to veer off once again into

their private rushes and reeds.

Or take wing to a secret nest in some tree hollow.

What were they doing on these occasions, others in the flock wondered.

It must involve more than the conjugal routines that the rest of them took as the normal course

of a couple's life.

Admittedly, the pair had felt an irresistible attraction at first sight, yet that by itself

could not explain their abiding devotion over the years since.

And though far distant homelands,

had colored their lives before meeting, and might well have hindered a shared one going

forward, the contrary became the sole reality of their love.

Day by day their paths merged until the two found themselves one, paddling side by side

or flying in rhythmic tandem through a borderland between worlds thought by others to be uncrossable.

Their devoted union was complete.

Whatever self-awareness,

one might say,

one had,

the other shared.

Whatever one experienced,

the other experienced just as fully.

And whenever they soared far from the lake,

their awe at the wonders of the borderland they'd entered was simultaneous,

equal,

and unending.

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Bound collections of tales in the series Likely Stories, Contemporary Fables and Parables,

and audio CD collections of selected tales, can also be ordered through bookstores or

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Thank you for watching.