Picture Book

On most days, I'm a rubber duck. The sort you find in children's bathtubs. Yellow and tubby and cheerful and incredibly, annoyingly unwilling to stay under for too long. That's not resilience, much as I would like to think it is. It amounts to resilience, maybe, but it's not the original thing. It's just a constitutional incapability to remain in one state for too long. Sooner or later, I'll bob out and float away to some other corner of the tub. When I get fed up of being on the surface of the water, I'll duck down to see what it's like among the suds. And when I've had too much of the tub altogether, I'll tip myself off the edge, land in the laundry basket, and go and see how things are by the washing machine.

On some days, though, I'm a stress-ball. Willy-nilly, I mould myself to the moods of the person holding me. If they're mad at the world, I start to feel a little mad too. If they are exhausted and don't have the energy to hold a stress-ball properly, I tumble out of their grip and find myself lying somewhere under the couch. It's dank and musty and, frankly, I hate it.

And on other, different days, I'm a seashell in a trinket box. A lot like the thousands of others on the beach and in the ocean, but with my own unique markings. I'll probably chip if you're bent upon getting me to crack, but then, I got here in the first place because I survived the ravages of the ocean, so maybe I'm not as fragile as you think I am - or, more importantly, as I think I am.

And sometimes, I'm a random blogger, talking about children's toys and crustaceans' shells.

Image Courtesy: Google Images