Christmas conundrum

After a morning finishing up at the Arvo Job, a lift home, a quick shop, a nap and a few cups of tea, I was just getting stuck into Xmas preparations for tomorrow when disaster struck - my wooden spoon snapped in half. As anyone in the know will tell you, it is nigh impossible to make ris a la mande without a wooden spoon. Other, non-wooden spoons just don't cut it, for they do not handle in the same way when it comes to swirling around rice, nuts and cream.

So, what with it being a beautiful, cool evening after a sultry day, I thought I'd go get a new spoon and fit in a nice twilight walk as well. My wanderings took me down the mean backstreets of our country town, where I came upon a mother duck with four tiny ducklings scooting across the road into an industrial courtyard full of dumpsters and sheds full of rubbish. I followed, wondering where the heck she was going, and soon realised that she was quite stressed and didn't really have a clue what to do except keep moving. As I watched her and tried to think how I could help, dark things began to move at the periphery of my vision. It was like those horror movies where shadows slip in and out of the frame, but whenever the protagonist whirls about, there's nothing there. In this case, I glimpsed fleeting images of feral cats - lots and lots of very tough looking and obviously very hungry feral cats, and all of them intent on the ducklings. Alas, there was nothing I could do in the time I had - the stupid duck mother pushed under a mesh and squeezed down a narrow drain between two buildings, taking her young ones with her. The cats flowed after them. Tragedy, I'm sure, soon ensued.

I was thinking about how sad it was that those tiny lives should be snuffed out so horribly as I walked home with my new wooden spoon when it occurred to me that as far as the shadowy slips of starvation were concerned, what had happened was a genuine Xmas miracle - when their bellies were empty and their feline need was great, fresh Christmas ducks were home delivered by random chance (or the Cat Goddess) to a group of lowly outcasts struggling to survive in their rundown alleyway. Those cats are probably still celebrating their good luck.

Besides, the fact that their Xmas dinner was fluffy and adorable and chirped prettily as it waddled along doesn't really make the consuming of it, no matter how messily it happened, more reprehensible than all the anodyne lumps packed in plastic that we humans will devour in vast amounts over the next few days. For, it should be remembered, those anodyne lumps on the decorated table also once gamboled, clucked, swam and whatnot, and they probably didn't have a great time getting from the home where they grew up to our plates.

Still, those poor little critters. They were cute...