My dunking duck

Allow me to introduce you to my dunking duck. Amongst other gifts I received this Christmas—a Tushie bidet, a bar of still unopened 70% chocolate, a pair of comfy maroon socks, a writer’s style guide, and the ubiquitous bottom-of-the-stocking orange, I received something I have wanted for a very long time, a youthful memento, a dunking duck that I have named Darleen.

In her own sweet way, Darleen effortlessly ducks and swings back and forth, back and forth, steadfastly, sleekly, and silently. There are no batteries, elastic springs or wind-up mechanisms. The only “motor” here is chemical. She swaggers and bobs, floating up and down in a steady perpetual motion, day in and day out, hour by hour, minute by minute. In here there is no guile or hint of complaint.

I am curious to discover how long she will continue her solitary swing   before her mechanism will either seize up due to aching joints, or eventually perish by obsolescent death due to plastic fatigue. For now, she goes about her business, industrially, ignorant of all human trials and tribulations.

She is a true toy for our times. I use the word “toy” intentionally. A toy is not a tool though it often performs a function. LEGO helps us build structures as does plasticine. Toys such as dolls and bears help us in our early years  learn to converse and socialize. Remember the “Teddy bear’s breakfast” or the “Fairy tea party.” Toys delight and entertain. Other “Darleens” with boobs might dance; my Darleen simply bobs. She just does what she does for no useful purpose other than to entertain me in a particular, periodic monotony. Like the ballerina in Swan Lake, she performs exquisitely, her own endless rhythm within a balanced routine, requiring only the topping up of a shallow water glass every few days. She is remarkably cost- and energy-efficient.

Science is hard at work here, a leisurely technology simply engineered, a process so brilliant as to rival other inventions—the ballpoint pen, the gramophone record, even the installation of rolled toilet paper. (See “bidet” above.) Gravity, evaporation, and physical mechanics collide and collaborate. The process is well explained here.

Darleen’s life, however, is not for me personally. I suffer from unrelenting ambition, a drive to do more, do better, accomplish more, make a name for myself as I foolishly seek the attention of others. Darlene lives in a totally opposite world. She asks nothing of life, people, and environment (apart from a downward dip into water every few seconds). Unlike me, Darleen, my dunking duck, is accomplished in and through in her lack of ambition. Her vocation is to bring pleasure to others, who with me rejoice in her predictable regularity.

And this she does, over and over again.