2011 Retrospective - Over the Hill

Ten little ducks went out one day
Some over the Hill, some Faraway
Mother Duck said "Quack quack quack quack"
But not one of those little ducks ever came back


 It’s nearly night, the smog overhead darkening fast. I’m waddling fast, trying to get somewhere safe before dark sets in. Oh Mother, I don’t want to be out in the dark. No sane duck does. The things that can’t face the twilight of day, well, nobody wants to face them either. My stomach rumbles at me, today’s foray did not go well. A few grass seeds, those not too scale-blighted, a relatively normal beetle, but not much else. Truth be told, there’s not much else to be had in this blighted land. Still, I scrape by, somehow. Something black and sinuous begins oozing from the shadows to my left, I have to hurry. The last place I slept comes into view, silhouetted by floodlights from the Hill. Square stone and cement form a squat bunker, open on three sides. The last light gleams dully on the glassy surface of the water that encircles the bunker completely. The water that keeps it safe. I speed up, the webbing on my feet slapping the ground. If I can get to the bunker, get over the water, I will be safe. Nothing will touch that, not without a price. The breath whistles in my beak as I sprint towards the bunker, strange things seeping out of the shadows all around me. I push off with my legs, flapping desperately with my wings. I can’t touch the water, I value my legs after all, but if I go too high the chemical smog overhead will leave me not much better. But this time I’ve made it, I’m safe, thank the Mother.  I enter the bunker, eyeing the long troughs with a sigh. They used to fill with grain, once. No-one knows where it came from, but it was clean and wholesome all the same. People used to gather at bunkers like these, when the grain came. I was hatched in one much like this. The Faraway didn’t bother us when we were in such big groups. But the grain stopped, and those peaceful little gatherings ripped themselves apart for whatever was left. They’re abandoned now, which is good for me. You can’t trust anyone any more, before you know it they’ll be stabbing you in the beak. Much better to be alone. This one has protection, and pure drinkable water at any rate.

Pebbles clatter on one another. I freeze, eyes probing the shadows inside the bunker. A shape comes into view, waddling slowly towards me. Grit, this is just what I need right now. Another duck muscling in on my hideout. Still, I wouldn’t send a duck out on a night like this, or any night, so perhaps a truce is in order. In the twilight I see a chipped beak,  dirty feathers and a milky, pure white eye. Mother help me, it’s Faraway. I try to back slowly out the door. I don’t know how much Faraway can see, but I definitely don’t want it noticing me. How the pluck did it get in here anyway? I thought all Faraway had been clipped. My foot dislodges a stone, sending it clattering down the slope to ripple in the water below. I freeze, hoping against hope… With a quack, it launches itself at me, wings flapping in rage. Pluck me! I throw myself to the right, but it twists itself and keeps coming in great, flapping bounds. I jump, trying to come down on it from above, only for its head to snake up under my wing and clamp on with unavian strength. Motherplucking piece of grit! I’m on the ground now, kicking at it as it twists my wing around, nearly out of its socket. Something cracks, a thrill of agony shivers through my body. I clamp the Faraway’s neck in my beak, hardly noticing my tongue as it rebels against the foul taste. With adrenaline-fueled strength I kick out, ripping its hold and sending us both skittering down the slope towards the water. My wing hangs limply, but I ignore it, pushing with all my strength. The Faraway pecks at my breast, pain lancing through me with each blow. Suddenly its beak is around my neck, and I’m having trouble breathing. White eyes stare at me as I struggle for breath, one working wing beating vainly at it. Red and black encroach on the edges of my vision, my head pounds to the beating of my heart, hoping for a single breath of air. With a despairing whisper of a quack, I bring my head up and slam it down upon the Faraway’s. It slips slightly, and strength flows into me with the precious oxygen. Again, our heads collide, making me dizzy all over again. I gather my strength, raise my head high, but this time I lead with my beak, a crushing blow aimed directly at its eye. A viscous fluid spurts into my beak, making my stomach rebel. The Faraway slips further, quacking softly as it touches the surface of the slick blackness surrounding the bunker. The water hisses and bubbles madly and the Faraway is once again in a frenzy, of pain this time. I can do nothing but watch as it slips further and further under the surface, its maddened thrashing availing it nothing. Then it is gone, and everything is quiet once more.

I stand outside the bunker, catching my breath and trying to both spit out and forget whatever it is that I’ve got in my beak. I turn back to the bunker. Oh no. Oh pluck me, no. Standing atop it, starkly lit by the floods from the Hill, is another Faraway. White eyes stare at me malevolently. Mother help me, I can’t do that again, not with my wing all but useless. I have to run, if I can get past the water I thought would protect me. The Faraway isn’t moving. What is it waiting for? Whatever, I doubt it will be good for my health. My shoulder screams as I raise my injured wing, fixing it in place. The pain makes me nauseous, but this is the only option. I just thank the Mother I’m uphill from the water. I hear a squawk behind me, the Faraway is following. I throw myself across the water once more, shoulder creaking as I try to hold my wings up and glide. The Faraway behind me hisses in rage. With a sickening crunch I feel my wing collapse, sending me spiraling towards the water below. I land on my belly, injured wing pinned beneath me. Sparks of black and red flare, I’m almost blacking out. I feel more than hear the roiling behind me, my tail is in the water! I scream and lurch drunkenly away, blood dripping from a thousand lacerations. Pluck me, but it hurts, hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I collapse in the dust, tears running down my face and dripping off my open beak. It hurts, it hurts so much.

Through the pain I hear wings flapping behind me. Please no, please. Mother, let me rest. The Faraway is on my side of the water now, it’s only a matter of time before it sees me, lit up as I am. If I move it will surely see me, and even if I make it to the shadows, well… no doubt it would be worse than whatever the Faraway could do to me. It waddles closer, and I stagger to my feet. I’m not quite ready to give up yet. Mother, not yet. The floods light up an avenue, beyond which the darkness is crawling. I have to stay in the light. There’s a pile of tumbled rocks just visibly lit, so I waddle towards it, only to find the hissing Faraway barring my path. How does the plucking thing move so fast? My only option is the Hill, then. I turn, stumbling blind through the bright lights, and the chase is on. It harries me towards the hill, hissing and pecking whenever I try to deviate. Eventually I can’t do anything more than push myself ever upwards, faint from the pain of my wing and tail. The Hill itself rises above me, a hunched edifice of rusted steel and dustblasted glass. Floods just like mine spear through the night, other ducks traveling along them as I am. So many! More than I’ve seen since the grain stopped. Behind every single duck a Faraway follows, herding them up to the Hill. Why are we being taken to the Hill? Black stacks rise out of it, belching that choking deadly smog into the atmosphere. A terrible cacophony fills the air like distant thunder, the roaring of flames and the clang of metal. We’re almost to the crest of the Hill now, and I’m filled with a terrible foreboding, all the warnings of my chickhood filling my head. Over the Hill, and Faraway… But not one of those little ducks ever came back… What is the Hill, and why are the Faraway taking us there? Why doesn’t anyone come back? If it is paradise, why doesn’t someone come back to tell the rest of us?

I reach the top of the Hill, and I can’t do anything but stare wearily. Down below me is a rusted and pitted slope of metal leading down to the shadows. The floods don’t light the way down, but I guess they don’t need to. The Hill is a massive funnel extending to either side of me, and I can see Faraway along the rim, pushing ducks down into the darkness. Why? Mother take me, why are they doing this. I turn around for the last time, and a hissing ball of fury knocks me down into the darkness. I tumble down the metal, wing and tail scraping painfully, quacking dementedly from the pain. A faint mist breathes across my face… and the pain is gone. There are even lights on inside the Hill, though I can’t tell where it comes from. I feel like laughing for joy, pure happiness rushes through my veins. I chortle in glee as the feathers are ripped from my body, leaving bare and bloody skin; laugh in glee as my legs are hacked off at the knee. The last thing I see are the friendly flames spurting out at me, making my skin crackle and my flesh broil. By the time my bones are ripped out and my flesh shredded, I am long gone.

The wind stirs bleached dust on the blasted landscape. Nothing moves, save the factory spewing noxious smoke up on the hill. A massive structure of metal and glass in an enclosure of concrete and stone, surrounded by low bunkers and parasite-infested water. This factory gleamed once, but it has been a long time. The feed tubes have all stopped, but the thralls still herd their undrugged counterparts into the massive intake funnel. Out the other end, a multitude of conveyor belts throw out box after neatly packaged and clingwrapped box. The boxes pile high, spreading out over the cracked and blighted plain. No-one has eaten one of Grandma Hill’s Famous Duck Pies in over fifty years, and no-one is left to ever do so again.

The factory grinds on.