Ducking Soap

I lit a candle, turned off the light and eased myself into the wet warmth of the bathtub. I took the special soap, squeezed it hard, held it close to my ear to listen and then let it slide into a dark, curved tub corner. I then launched the mother duck and her two ducklings.

The exclusive ducks lay heavy in the water and soon began to glow yellow and paddle furiously with small webbed feet, tickling my tummy. Not only that but the mechanical mother Anatidae shined a tiny red spotlight through the water, sweeping it to and fro like a movie premiere upside down. A speaker in her bill emitted the weak signal from the submerged soap, “ping…ping…ping.”

Mamma Duck changed direction and increased speed, bumping against my knee with her offspring following close after. The sound grew louder until with a bathroom-echoing “PING…PING…PING” the family lay still, assembled with a column of red illuminating my lost soap. I retrieved the bar and gave each bird a beak peck before returning them to the window sill.