The littlest one glanced longingly from the pond at her slightly-larger yellow duckling counterparts resting about a foot away on the grass. She stretched her body, neck, head up, up, up to be as tall as possible to assess the situations. She – let’s call her Gurdy – found her friends were indeed all there, just beyond the cement wall that separates the pond from the lawn.

Moved by ambivalence or problem-solving – I’m not sure – Gurdy bobbed her body up to look and down to relax and sip the murky pond shallows. She decided joining her brothers and sisters was worth the trouble of the mini-van-length trek to the rock ramp. Gurdy swam intently to the rock, ran up the ramp and toward her fuzzy friends.

Gurdy paused before coming upon the group’s security guard, the First Goose. Comforted, perhaps by the lack of response from the Goose, Gurdy continued on to one of two snuggle huddles of yellow ducklings. She joined in her brother and sisters’ harmless pecking of one another to cuddle as closely as possible with one another.

They fit like perfect puzzle pieces. Their closed eyes resembled dried out tangerine seeds, creme-colored and slightly wrinkly. As the minutes passed, some stretched their legs, some shimmied in closer. Amidst the movement, they remained close, like living puzzle pieces meant to fit together.