Revenge of The Killer Duck

[Donna Moore]

Well, there I was having an early morning walk around my local park, which, on a wet Saturday morning in Glasgow is relatively empty (apart from the odd dogwalker and the even odder jogger (I'm not in any hurry - a walk will do me thank you)).

I was striding briskly around the edge of the pond with The Ramones on my ipod (I walk faster to The Ramones and The Fratellis than to anything else - I have to exclude Tom Waits and Dean Martin from my playlist or it would take me all day) and I was musing over what's going to happen next in the book I'm working on (as you can see, I'm really good at forward planning) and I had an idea which I think will work. However, it necessitates some research, since I've never been to a fetish club, and I was pondering over which of my friends would be most likely to come with me (the answer I have regretfully come to is 'none'. I realised how desperate I was, having gone through the list of friends and family, when I was left with my mother as the only option. That was definitely not oing to work - PVC is something used to cover the stools at the breakfast bar and a nipple clamp is something my dad might use in the mystery that is the car engine.

So, I was considering the possibilities of the scene and the likelihood of me being able to write it realistically without having gone to such a club - a thorny issue that demanded my full concentration - when I caught a movement at my left hand side and my leg was suddenly jabbed just above the ankle. The first thought that came into my head was that I'd been mistaken for a Russian dissident and stabbed with a poisoned umbrella. The second was "I need to get away from the pointy thing." I half jumped, half fell in the opposite direction from my attacker, forgetting in my panic that 'in the opposite dircetion from my attacker' translated as 'into the pond'.

With a splash that reverberated around the park I ended up sitting on the slimy bottom (not mine, the pond's) in two feet of stagnant water. Water that was not only full of weeds, irn bru cans, candy wrappers and heaven only knows what else (it's a PARK - goodness only knows what happens there after dark), but which swans and ducks had relieved themselves in. These swans and ducks were now all paddling towards me - no doubt eyeing me as an unfeasibly large and savoury piece of bread that someone had tossed in for their breakfast. On the path at the side of the pond, one small but particularly belligerent looking duck was giving me the evil eye, as though to say "Come on punk, make my day."

I scrambled out of the water, dripping and slimy, looking for all the world like The Creature From The Black Lagoon and squelch squelch squelched my way home. Needless to say, where I had fallen in was the furthest point from my flat and I had to cross two busy roads to get there. I tried to do this nonchalantly - if I could ignore the stream of water in my wake, wouldn't everyone else? Luckily, in Glasgow, the tendency is to Look Away And Not Make Eye Contact when faced with a nutter. The worst moment was when I passed a small boy walking past with his mother. "Look mummy - that lady's wet herself." I've now had a shower, scrubbed the pond life away, and am sitting with a nice cup of tea.