It was a cataclysmic meterological event of unparalleled consequence.  The earth hiccoughed and just for a second reversed its rotation causing an upheaval on Lake Easy where I now like to go fishing here in Florida.  This happened may ages ago before pencil and paper so it was never officially recorded and that’s why I feel compelled to create this myth at this time.

When this strange anomally occurred all the waters of Lake Easy were sucked from the large depression in the ground and spread all across the nearby lands.  Forests of long leaf pine trees, which could not tolerate root rot, were killed off while hundreds of bald cypress trees, which loved dangling their toes in the tepid lake water, died from an ancient form of athlete’s  foot.  All was not as it once was nor as it should have been.

As time passed, things began to return to normal.  Water again filled the depression and nature regained it composure with one small glitch.  The clutch of 11 eggs a mallaard duck was setting on at the time now contained, not just those original eggs, but an additional one–an alligator egg.

Finally on a warm morning the mother duck felt movement beneath her soft belly feathers and the hatching began.  Soon there were 11 cute ducklings and one little alligator added to the population of Lake Easy.  Life was good.  The babies learned to swim behind their mother and soon began chasing June bugs and gypsy moths–all except one.  He preferred to torment small minnows and frogs that got too close to the bank.

As the brood grew older and their play more aggressive, they began to make fun of their alligator sibling, teasing him because he had bumpy, scaly skin instead of soft, yellow down.  He had a long, narrow snout  full of sharp, crooked teeth, instead of a nice little bill like a platypus.  They would not let him play with them as they splashed about the lake.  He was sad and became very lonely.   He could only go to his mother duck for solace and she looked at him with suspicious eyes from time to time.  He began to resent his brothers and sisters and that resentment would eat at him through the long summer months to come.

Spring was coming to the north now and the ducklings had exchanged their down for beautiful feathers and had learned to fly but their strange little brother stayed pretty  much the same, growing no feathers and having no wings.  The mother duck sensed that the last frost had melted from the northern feeding grounds and she prepared her brood for the long migration.  It can’t be said she didn’t try. She encouraged the little alligator to flap his front legs as hard as he could but it was of no avail.  He could not fly.  She had not choice–the time was right–she could stay no longer.  Much of the flock had already departed so she gathered the 11 ducklings together, tearfully said goodbye to her other little offspring and flew off to the north.  The little alligator was devastated.  He was also angry.  Why couldn’t some of them have stayed behind with him?

Summer was one of loneliness for the alligator which, by now was getting some size to him.  He didn’t have much to do with the other gators in the lake, not having any social skills other than duckiness.  Likewise, the other gators wanted nothing to do with him.  They called him Little Orphan Allie.

Allie had a notion that once cold weather came to the northern feeding grounds he would see his brothers and sisters again.   He began to anticipate their return in a manner he did not quite understand but the thought produced a lot of additional   saliva, especially if he was hungry at the time.

It was late October, still warm on Lake Easy, winds from the southeast, when out  of the sky came the quackings of hundreds of ducks.  They circled the lake, came in from the northwest and landed near the shore where the bald cypress had re-established themselves.  Allie swam in their direction and looked at the busy flock, searching for a familiar bill.

Suddenly he saw them.   Only nine, but there was no mistaking–those were his brothers and sisters, all grown up now.  He swam closer until he spotted the one sister who had teased and taunted him the most when they were very young.  She had made him feel miserable and he didn’t like her very  much and he was salivating.  Good.  She is separating herself from the flock somewhat.  Allie, only his eyes and snout protruding above the water line, slithered toward the unsuspecting duck, coming ever closer, and closer, and closer…………….