Jack n Jill

As I walked to Yercaud foothills a nomad passed me with his brood of ducklings, moving as one large amorphous amoeba. Just hatched, probably few days old nevertheless cuddly little fellas cute as all newborn are. I decided to get a pair and after a bout of haggling had Jack and Jill in my hand. It feels nice to hold life in one's hands. Being an ER doc I get to hold the dead many times and it aint easy. Many nights the thought of the cold hand haunts me endlessly, who once would have lived like the rest of us. I quit active practice as I couldn't handle the emotional turmoil of seeing people dead, if lucky in one piece. ER work is battlefield work, nothing easy about it. No matter how much one prepares for the shift, it is annoyingly novel every time. The feeling of a bird held in hand is how foetus moving in the belly of a pregnant mom is described in medical textbooks. Being the unlucky sex, we men can only plant seed but it is left to the female to nurture and grow a life. As I held these two fellas in my hand, it reminded me God exists.

At home a cozy home was identified for the ducklings. An unused bird cage which saw 30 pigeons breeding actively was soon home to our babies. As I walked in to my house Brownie our dachshund was curious to see the contents of the bag I held in my hand. I decided to introduce Jack and Jill to the master of the house Brownie. As I lowered the bag for brownie, he lunged at it as if I was offering a gift to him. I should have recognized the hunter turning on in him, alas it slipped my mind.

After settling into their new home with fresh water to drink and some rice to eat, Jack and Jill announced their arrival with a medley of kee kee kee. The baby sound ducklings make till they learn to quack kept us company for many days. My elderly parents who always bred hens, cocks, pigeons, ducks, turkeys were overwhelmed with joy to hold the lil fellas in their hand.

After an hour there was silence from Jack and Jill. I went to check on their wellbeing. Surprisingly both were missing from the pigeon hole that we had placed them in. Being babies, who are curious and inquisitive by nature they had decided to check out the rest of the coop. I closed the main door of the coop behind me and started looking for them amongst all the stuff that had crept into the coop, serving as a store now. 

Brownie was furious that I had ignored him and not utilized his services to find Jack and Jill. His incessant barking with ears upright and tail pointed straight out was clear he was ready to serve his master, me. Or that was how I interpreted it then. He was actually hunting. In an earlier encounter Tiger his predecessor had sniffed out Nag, a 5 foot hooded Cobra in our garden and ensured my dad came nowhere near it with barking and display of his canine protecting his master. Eventually that snake was dealt with safely. Expecting a serpent I opened the coop door.

Hunter Brownie went straight for the jugular of one of the duckling, grabbed it and ran away. Before I realized what had transpired he had enjoyed the snack and came trotting for second helping. I disciplined him and tried in vain to explain to a hunter the morals of going vegan. 

Dont know if it was Jack or Jill that survived this onslaught but after much searching found the survivor very quietly hiding in a nook. I gently extricated it and shifted to a safer place with strong mesh all around. Duckling was happy though it must have missed the brood that were its siblings and till recently his partner. Brownie was always sitting outside the cage like sphinx in rapt attention watching every move or noise it made. Life went on for the singleton with Brownie the bad boy eyeing it and desperately clawing away to reach it. One fine day there was silence in the cage. I found to my dismay my little baby on her back, probably dying of cold.

Jack and Jill came down the Yercaud hill,
Jack got eaten, Jill survived but in a few days joined him in the yonder.

Life goes on...