What happens to the ducklings that follow their mother around? When do they learn to stray from her sure-footed path and what would tempt them to leave the safe haven of that path? Her steps are even and practiced while theirs is stuttering and erratic. Her movements lucid and beautiful in their simplicity while her children's are bumping and trudging along... What makes them hunger for the images that are unknown? What if one liked the sight of their mother's feathers gliding back and forth as her legs sway back and forth? What if they were mesmerized by the ease of her movements, her ease of decision?

Imagine a man molding clay. The figure in his hands is simple and plain but he holds onto it. Sometimes, most times, he held so tight that it would melt from his warmth and he would have to repair it over and over. It's tired limbs droop and it's flimsy heart settled into his tired routine. Finally, the man set the dripping and liquid clay into a mold, but the mold is undecided. The clay is so malformed, so manhandled; it has to force itself into the crevices. Exausghted, it rested anywhere it would and began to harden. The figure is nothing approaching what it thought it wants to look like. But has no warmth of it's own to mold itself. All its power, all it's power came from the warmth of its maker. For the first time, the crackling mud felt coldness. The air constricts around its open pores and swooshes into the waterless creases. It felt itself being broken into bits. The potter forgot to cover it. He left the mold in the open, laid bare, to be invaded by air. Having no strength, the clay felt itself slowly turn to dust until nothing of its hardened form was left. But once in the air, the particles flitted everywhere, anywhere it wished and for once, the clay found strength in the element that destroyed the work of the molder. Its enemy became its deliverer, it's liberator.

Learn more about this author, Courtney Hacker.
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