The Adventures of A Dead Duck

-Humor – 3 Pages –

Ick Bollard had waited a long time for this. Longer than he could actually remember. And that was a long time. Ick didn’t know how long, because he’d forgotten how to tell the time, but he knew he’d waited a good while. Ages. Aeons maybe, even though he had no idea how long that was. But it sounded like it was along time, so he’d go with that.

Ick Bollard had waited aeons for this.

Though he had forgotten almost everything (bar his name), he had woken from Deep Sleep and found a note glued to his head. He’d pulled it off ( much too fast and taken several layers of skin with it). After shouting obscenities to no-one in particular about what kind of idiot would glue a note to someone’s head, he spent several minutes getting his eyes to focus and then read it:

ENGAGE AUTOPILOT

Love Ick J xx

Ah….

He stumbled out of his Deep Sleep Tube and gazed around him. Buttons and switches. Lots of them. Lots and lots of them. Mostly blinking off and on. On and off. But when he looked more closely, he noticed that some of them had little yellow pieces of paper stuck next to them….

He peered at one.

INSTAVAC CLEANING SYSTEM (never used)

IGNORE

Ick J xx


He moved to another:

WHAMFM

CRAP STATION

ONLY PLAYS CRAP SONGS FROM THE 1980’s

IGNORE

Ick J xx


On to another:

THIS ONE JUST BLINKS.

NO IDEA WHAT IT DOES

IGNORE

I J xx


Ignore, ignore ignore.

Ick started pulling the notes down from around him. What the hell was this? He’d told himself he needed to engage the autopilot, yet had then proceeded to tell himself to ignore everything! Even in his fragile mental state, Ick could see that one Post It Note saying AUTOPILOT would have worked quite nicely. Ick worried that he appeared to be only slightly more with it before he went into Deep Sleep than after…….

Eventually, after scouring all the hundreds of notes he found the Autopilot one. He kept only two of the hundreds he discarded…..one said SHITTER: YOU HAVEN’T CRAPPED FOR A BLOODY LONG TIME SO YOU’LL NEED THIS ONE)

and the other said

PORN! KEEP! WOOHOO! and had a 😉 next to it.

He put those in his pocket.

Even though he didn’t know himself, Ick reckoned he was a good judge of character and could trust himself.

So he kept the two messages and stood in front of the Auto Pilot.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

He flicked the switch.

Everything beeped. Everything blinked.

And then everything shook!

Instinctively, Ick knew he had to get strapped in. He found the nearest chair and buckled up. He was excited but he didn’t know why. He was waiting for something and he knew that this was it! He just hoped AUTOPILOT knew what it was doing.

More beeping. More blinking. And much more shaking.

Ick closed his eyes. Deep Sleep. All I want is Deep Sleep.

Then there was an almighty thud!

Silence.

Ick breathed deeply. He knew now why he had left a note for himself about the toilet.

He waited. And waited. And waited.

What was he waiting for?

He knew he wasn’t going to find out by sitting here. He unbuckled himself and moved to the door. He was most dismayed to find it labelled DOOR with his scribbled monica underneath it. How stupid did he think he was?

Then he found another by the handle. It said:

THIS WAY TO NEW EARTH

YOU LUCKY BASTARD

Love you

Ick J xxx


Suddenly it came flooding back.

Earth. The invasion. So sudden. Destroyed. The horror. SO SUDDEN. No chance. Why? Exodus. Hope? A few. Spaceships. Undetected. Deep Sleep.

Suddenly he knew it all. He had witnessed the horror of it all. Seen the death and suffering. He started shaking and stumbled.

Dead. Everybody was dead.

Ick knew what he had to do.

Deep breaths. He needed to do this. Had to do this….

He knew he should have asked the on board computer for an atmospheric reading first, but he was just too damn scared.

New Earth? Please…

Ick Bollard paused. He was trying to remember something. Something important. He wracked his over stretched brain.

Then it came to him….. a phrase. An important one.

He cleared his throat.

For the first time in 258 years a human spoke:

“Erm…..this is one big step for man and one huge leap for mankind”

With that, Ick Bollard opened the door.

It was dark. The air was tinged with the odour of ozone. God that smelled good! Ick took a deep breath. He hadn’t smelled fresh air for, well, as long as he could remember.

He took that Big Step for mankind.

And it quacked.

Ick recoiled. That wasn’t right. He tried again. And it quacked again.

No no no! Ick thought. He grabbed a flashlight and shone in through the door.

Ick almost dropped his flashlight. The only thing that kept him looking was the strange voyeur in him. There were rows upon rows of them. Ducks. And they seemed to be dead. All lying on their backs, legs in the air.

He found the flood lights for his ship (labelled BIG BASTARD LIGHTS) and turned them on.

All he could see for miles around were ducks. Every hill, every valley was full of dead ducks. Millions upon millions of dead ducks.

“Ah fuck!”

Ick closed the door and stumbled back to his DST.

Being the last human alive, he had kind of got used to failure.

Deep Sleep…..ah…

He knew that ducks would eat just about anything. A whole planet of dead ducks? Must be a no no.

Onward and upward.

With that Ick went back to sleep.


On a small planet in the middle of no where of importance, a duck said:

“Up and at em guys! There you go!! Works everytime!”

And a million ducks carried on about their business despite all the disruptions to their lives.


This story goes hand in hand with this other submission by the author: CEDK

Originally Posted 02/23/2005

More Humor Stories…

Steve Wilkins

Submitted a couple of shorts back in 2005-2006. Clever concepts. He had no publication or website to promote...just an idea for a short series published here.

One thought on “The Adventures of A Dead Duck

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

error

Enjoyed this? Please spread the word :)