Athos Muskaduck on the Middle East

Athos here. I’m finally ready to do this blog thing. Don’t expect it to be all cutesy like when my partner Porthos was the narrator. He’s a bit of a narcissistic clown who is always craving the limelight. He said he was going to turn this blog over to me, the leader, for some serious business when I was ready.

 

But to even get near the HP TouchPad so I could swipe the touch screen with my wing and peck at the onscreen keyboard with my bill, I had to kick him away with my webbed feet and beat him about his green head with a stick. In case you’re joining this late -- Porthos, Aramis and I were transformed into ducks. And if that puzzles you, you can read the posts from Porthos earlier in this blog. They are silly at times, but informative.

But now it's time to get serious, so listen up while I hunt and peck on the TouchPad tablet and tell you how I have come to understand the tension in the Middle East by observing life right here in a Texas park.

By the way, we’re no longer in the park where Art met us and gave us the tablet. If you’re one of Art’s friends, he may have told you that he's sad he hasn't found us for several weeks now during his walks in that park. Well, I said before that he was a loser. The poor baby could find us if he tried.

We decided to fly just five kilometers north to golf course. The pond where we had met Art started to turn into a polluted, bloody swamp as the long-standing war between the Herons and the Egrets escalated. They launched surprise attacks nearly every day, using their razor sharp talons against one another to maim and kill. Turkey vultures who were circling constantly were often rewarded as the stench of the decaying bodies of casualties rose from many areas of the pond.

Because Herons and Egrets are closely species from the same common ancestor, it's always been a mystery how their fight for territory can become so fierce -- a mystery I think we've solved. I went back to the park posing as a journalist and obtained press passes into both camps to interview the leaders of the Heron and Egret forces. And now in our safe new location, I've been using the TouchPad to do in-depth research on them as well as the current Middle East situation, and some amazing parallels are emerging.

But some of you skeptics are already looking for reasons to disbelieve my story, and I know what you’re thinking. It would be impossible for three mallards to transport an HP TouchPad five kilometers! Correct. But not for ten mallards.

When we landed on the clear, clean water near the golf course, we soon found seven other drakes and their families who already called the 3^rd hole water hazard their home. They lived a nearly idyllic life within sight of spacious mansions and seemingly endless groomed lawns. 

Once in a rare while a white, round incoming missile shook them up a little and maybe killed some fish. But these were random disasters that were not directed at them personally. In fact, their lives were so sheltered that at first they did not want to deal with our impassioned stories of the escalating conflict and loss of life at the swamp in the south.

Just because we were mallards talking to other mallards did not make it any easier for us to explain our origin over 300 years ago as human Musketeers. We told them we could prove it if they would help us retrieve a communications device (the HP TouchPad) we had hidden back in the war zone -- a device that allowed not only glimpses into the past but also a panoramic present day view of all countries, cultures and conflicts throughout the Whole Wide World. We explained how dangerous it could be if this powerful device were discovered and misused by either side in the swamp conflict.

I was the one who devised the plan. In the dead of night, we stole a length of orange webbed construction fencing from a lot where yet another mansion was being built. All ten of us hooked our feet into the webbed fencing material. We flew in formation to the pond, found where we had hidden it, and then flew back again with the TouchPad cradled in the center of the webbing. 

Our mission was accomplished when we landed back on the golf course on a well-marked landing strip of perfectly manicured grass and set up the TouchPad near a golf cart charging station on the 10^th tee where we could plug it in. We sent Aramis back for the charging cord, which we always seemed to forget.

Our first task was to get our new friends to believe who we were. I’ll give Porthos credit for coming up with a strategy for that. Because he was still the most skilled at poking the tablet, and because Art had given him his Amazon Prime password and Instant Video PIN, he managed to rent the 1993 Disney version of The Three Musketeers. None of us had ever seen it before, but when we were able to predict every twist and turn of the plot, the other seven mallards got on board, begged us to let them become honorary Muskaducks, and started to ask for details about the conflict to the south.

We promised to tell them more the next day, because we were all tired from our mission, and from the long movie. As the three of us drifted off in our new sleeping quarters, we compared opinions on the choice of actors for our parts in this version of our classic historical adventures.

  

                                               

ME: I thought Kiefer Sutherland did an OK job as me, except for his scene with Milady de Winter. I did not say those mushy things to her after learning of her betrayal.

ARAMIS: Charlie Sheen was but a shallow caricature of my spirituality and my admitted appreciation for feminine beauty. I can’t see his career going anywhere but down.

PORTHOS: Couldn’t they have gotten some big name actor to portray me with flare and panache rather than that unknown comedian who played me with such buffoonery?  However, my character was shown as saving the day in several tight spots, and rightly so. I think you’re getting in a bit of a tight spot with your blog entries, Athos. You’re too dry and serious. Want me to take over for you tomorrow?

ME: Not on your life, Porthos. I am going to bring to this Middle East discussion exactly the tone it requires, you’ll see. Good night! And stay away from the TouchPad!

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