Liam The Duck Judges You

Part One:  “Meet Liam” or “Liam Judges a Jilted Jeremy While Eating Stale Popcorn”

by Liam the duck.

Jeremy, an exchange student from Portland, Oregon, was sitting in his apartment strumming haphazardly on an out-of-tune guitar and questioning the sexual orientation of his long-time girlfriend, Anna. The apartment overlooked a pleasant pond where many ducks were swimming very joyously that Friday evening, and Anna was presently in the arms of her new lover, a yoga enthusiast and coffee shop barista named Sandra. Only one duck would survive the harsh winter of that year, and Anna would break Sandra’s heart before she had the chance to shatter Jeremy’s. After time, Jeremy would eventually go on to identify with the loneliness of the one remaining mallard, which he would name “Anna” out of sentimentality — but who was actually called Liam.

* **

Jeremy broke a guitar string and realized he’d skipped lunch. He made himself his usual tuna-melt croissant sandwich and headed to the park where daily he would eat and watch the ducks, all the time wondering what they were thinking, but never quite knowing.

He smiled at the one he would eventually dub Anna. He tossed a bit of his sandwich to the mallard. He thought the bird might appreciate it. The mallard did not. Nor did Liam smile back.

Rather, Liam glared at the bit of croissant Jeremy had tossed from the park bench. Then he thought to himself: At least I know that sad bastard’s name. The least he could do is spare more of his sad bastard lunch and maybe half of that sad bastard beer he’s so surreptitiously drinking from a brown paper bag. No wonder he’s about to get dumped for that barista floozy. I bet she’s a bit more generous if you know what I mean. It’s all about sa-tis-faction. Even I know that. And I’m a duck. And he was, in fact, a duck. But, kind reader, we’ve been over this.

Liam went unnoticed by Sandra as she approached Jeremy and took the empty seat beside him on the bench.

“I’ve got something to tell you.”

Here we go, thought Liam as he picked a kernel from off the ground. He felt joyous and lucky to find the remainders of a half-eaten bag of stale popcorn beneath the bench upon which Sandra and Jeremy sat. All the more fitting for the viewing of what he thought was to be a rather entertaining encounter. Popcorn is essential to such entertainment. You see, my dearest, gentlest reader, Liam had observed the sordid Sapphic goings-on from the window ledge of Jeremy’s ground floor flat in Dublin town, right by St. Stephen’s Green park. The bird nibbled on his popcorn, finished off the bag, quacked a few times (as ducks do), and Sandra fiddled with her eyebrow ring.

“I know you don’t know who I am,” she began. “But there’s something I need to tell you.”

Liam ruffled his feathers a bit, and made himself comfortable. He used the empty popcorn bag like a ‘chaise longue.’ This is going to be deliciously awkward. Stayed tuned, gentle readers. For it will be exactly that: deliciously awkward.