The Deer and the Duck

Once a deer and a duck were good friends. The deer was fond of the duck, and the duck was fond of the deer.

The deer was fond of galloping in the open range, whereas the duck was content with her pond. The duck knew that the deer wanted to venture far, and frequently told the deer that it was free to go anytime, and that the duck would not give it a hard time.

The deer was fond of the duck and though it wanted to venture far, it also knew that without it the duck would soon be devoured by the vultures. The deer slept fitfully, with dreams of vistas beyond the hills. The duck, though dismayed to keep the deer restrained, was nevertheless pleased that the deer cared for it and was keeping it company. They had promised each other that no matter what happened, they would always meet in the evening and care for and protect each other.

One day the deer went very far and could come only late at night. The duck was filled with an inordinate rage that the deer had forsaken it. While the deer slept, the duck quacked and quacked till her distant friends the wolves came near the pond. The wolves dared not attack the deer on their own but they promised the duck, in their cunning, that they would teach the deer a lesson and make the deer pay for the duck's quacks of misery.

The next day, as the deer was just venturing from the pond, the duck gave a signal to the wolves and their friends, the bloodhounds. There was a great roar all around as the hounds and the wolves ran after the deer. As the deer galloped to safety in a cave, the hounds and the wolves, with saliva dripping from their jaws, set fire to the bushes near the cave. The deer went further and further inside the cave.

Deep inside the cave it found an inscription which simply said, in duck language: "Remember This." It was hungry and thirsty, and the heat from the fires nearby were sucking all air from inside the cave. It started eating the leaves and licking the damp walls of the cave, and fell unconscious as the heat became unbearable.

But it survived.

Many days and weeks and months passed as the wolves and hounds waited for the deer to come out. The duck, with its eyes still blood-red with anger, wanted to know from the wolves if they had killed the deer yet, and the wolves promised it that it was only a matter of time.

In the meanwhile, the deer, inside the cave, found an elixir of strength, a fountain of water so pure that it made the deer lustrous. Even in the dark of the night, the cave shimmered with a slight glow from the deer's body. The deer, not knowing the reality behind the attack, shed tears over what it thought to be the duck's plight, who was alone in its absence.

Many more days, weeks and months passed and the patience of the wolves and of the hounds ran out. They lost interest and assumed the deer was long dead.

As a new day broke over the horizon, the deer saw that there were no moving shadows near the gate of the cave. The wolves and the hounds had left. It came out of the cave, looked at the sky for a long time till its neck hurt, and then walked back to its home near the pond.

The duck saw the deer, became scared that the deer was coming for it, and started quacking again. Once again the wolves and the hounds came running. The deer, for a moment, could not understand what was happening. But then it suddenly realized. Now it realized what the duck had done, and that it was the duck who was behind the attacks.

But this time, the deer was not scared. With an indomitable strength, it stood calmly as the hounds growled and as the wolves bared their teeth and scratched their paws in the ground. The deer, suddenly, started soaring and galloping and wounding the hounds and the wolves with its antlers. It started attacking and killing the hounds and the wolves. Nobody knew what had made the deer so strong, and the duck trembled in fear when it saw that the deer had become immortal, that no blood flowed from its body even when it was wounded.

The battle was soon over, and the deer then turned towards the duck, and looked into its eyes for a long time. With a piercing gaze, it kept looking till the duck could take it no more and begged forgiveness. But the deer had spent so many months on its own now that it had forgotten the duck's language and could not understand what the duck said.

It simply repeated the only phrase of duck-language that it now knew: "Remember This."

The duck then gestured for the deer to come closer and sit down. The deer again looked at the sky, which was clear except a single whiff of a cloud directly above. But it heard a flutter of a great many wings. It galloped away with an effortless grace into the open range, leaving the duck behind, forever.


The duck became despondent and tried looking at the sky to see what the deer had seen, but its neck was too short to look up to see what was coming. But it did not have to wait for long. In a short while, the faint flutter of wings that the deer had heard became a thunderstorm. Thousands of vultures descended near the pond and started devouring the carcasses of the wolves and the hounds. The day became night as they clouded the sun.

Neither the deer nor the duck was seen again after that day.