There lived thousands of ducks around a lake. These ducks organized different competitions and competed gently and they awarded the ones who came first. Gadro was winning all the competitions which were organized for the last few years. He was coming first an all competitions such as swimming, diving, walking beautifully etc. many years ago while his friends were playing around; Gadro was training alone and was very ambitious about being the champion one day. He didn’t attend any of the competitions without being sure of himself and he came first in all the games that he attended.
Recently, Gadro started to say his friends that he was planning to migrate somewhere far away. In fact he wasn’t happy there. It was such a small place and he thought that the world was so big. His aim was to be famous all around the world. Being famous in that place was not enough for him. He wanted to be a world famous duck.
One day Gadro left his homeland without telling anyone. He was walking so fast and what is more he didn’t turn back to look at the places where he was born and grew up once more. As he was going away from his homeland that was by the lake he realized that a pain in his heart was growing bigger and bigger. Whenever he saw some animals on his way through the woods he immediately went near them but when he realized that those animals were behaving him as if he was an ordinary duck and they were laughing at him when he told them about some of his plans. So that he was really unhappy and desperate.
After a while Gadro realized that other animals were laughing at even the way he walked so his unhappiness grew more and more. He thought that they were a few stupid animals and he found it ridicules how they could dare to laugh at a champion duck that was really talented and could be a world famous sportsman one day.
He was known by thousands of ducks that lived by the lake and he was admired by them. What about those animals. None of them was famous and known by any other animals. They didn’t even know who or what they were. Was it possible for an animal that forgot its own name to remember Gadro, even if he was known by everyone? They were all poor, pitiable creatures.
For five years Gadro travelled and lived in lots of different places. And then he turned back to his homeland by the lake. He wasn’t walking around the lake any more as he did in the past and at nights he was training for swimming and diving in the lake. During the day he was watching the ducks that were swimming in the lake at the top of one of the hills around.
One day Gadro climbed on that hill again and to his amazement he saw that there were about forty or fifty ducks by the lake and five of them started competing in the lake. Rarely could he hear some of the ducks were applauding the competitors. Gadro thought they must be training. After a short time Gadro realized that an old duck was approaching him. He pulled down his hat on his eyes in order to be unknown by this old duck. After greeting Gadro the old duck sat next to him.
‘This year very few ducks are showing interest in competitions’ the old duck said. ‘As you see only five ducks are competing and hardly fifty ducks are watching and trying to courage them.’
Gadro was confused.
‘Whad did you say? Are they competing at the moment? I don’t believe it. I thought they were training!’ replied Gadro.
‘They are really racing my son. What is more this is the most important competition of the year. The duck which comes first in swimming will get the big prize. There used to be amazing competitions in this lake. This hill, those hills and the ones behind used to be full of spectators and hundreds of ducks used to attend the competitions which lasted for days and all the competitors tried to do their best. The ones that came first became perceptible in the competitions which were held on the next day and they used to get their awards while everybody was applauding them. After Gadro left here, the excitement of the competitions ended. If it goes on this way, in a few years time there will be nobody attending the races. It is really hard to find a duck to compete if there is no spectator.’ the old duck explained sadly.
Gadro was really touched while listening to the old duck and there were tears in his eyes. He pulled up his hat a bit to clean his tears. The old duck who had seen Gadro many times while he was competing and training around the lake realized that the duck sitting next to him was Gadro. He was the champion of all the games. It was unbelievable. Ha turned back to his homeland many years later. At first Gadro denied that he was the champion duck but in the end he confessed that he was because the old duck insisted on him a lot. Also he accepted to publicize his being back to other ducks.
The next day, thousands of ducks gathered by the lake. They were all waiting for Gadro so that he didn’t make them wait for too long. He came there and he started swimming in the lake with the old duck and he met all the ducks in the lake and greeted them, made some compliments and a short speech to the ducks.
Then he started coaching the young ducks that were getting ready for the next competitions. The did his best to make each of them good competitors. Hundreds of ducks started to attend the competitions again as it used to be in the past. Gadro entered the competitions as well. He was coming first in most of them and sometimes he let others to beat him because he wanted to courage the other young ducks and everybody knew that he was being beaten on purpose.
That year Gadro was twenty-four and he got really old. He could attend the short distance swimming competitions for the past few years. In his last competition although he had some problems at the beginning of the game he didn’t give up swimming. He came last. When the other ducks turned back after completing the race they saw Gadro. The champion duck was falling on his back as he tried to swim and he was struggling desperately. Other ducks were shocked and they knew that Gadro had done lots of things for them to be a champion. He coached them day and night. And their coach was in a difficult situation. They swam quickly back towards Gadro and they took him in their arms. He could hardly speak as he was nearly unconscious. He was saying that he had to finish the race. He managed to finish the race in the arms of other ducks while thousands of ducks were watching him silently.
Normally average life expectancy for a duck is about twenty five years but Gadro lived longer than that. He couldn’t compete any more but he was always there to support the other duck.
Written by: Serdar Yıldırım
