There once was a duck.
Not just any duck, mind you.
This was Derek the Duck, a once-proud waddler of pond edges, conqueror of breadcrumbs, and undefeated champion of synchronized head-bobbing. But now? Derek was… different.

He sat on a soggy lily pad, staring into the murky waters below with the same energy as a college student who just opened their bank app. The sun was shining, the frogs were croaking, and the other ducks were quacking happily—but Derek? Derek let out a long, soul-heavy quack that translated roughly to:

“What’s the point of flying if you always have to come back down?”

🛋️ Duckpression: It’s Real
No one saw it coming. One day he was flapping his wings like a caffeinated windmill, the next he was writing poetry in the mud with a stick. Haikus, no less.

Pond so full of life,
Yet I feel like soggy bread—
Where is my purpose?

Word spread quickly. The other ducks held an intervention. Greg the Goose tried honking some motivational quotes. Clara the Swan brought gluten-free breadcrumbs (Derek wasn’t gluten-intolerant, but she insisted “clean carbs, clean mind”). Still, Derek stared blankly into the sky, mumbling something about “late capitalism and the futility of flap-based locomotion.”

🧘 Ducking Around With Self-Help
Derek tried everything:

Yoga for waterfowl (he fell asleep in downward duck).

Therapy (the therapist was a turtle; progress was slow).

Quackupuncture (like acupuncture, but exclusively beak-related).

He even tried becoming an influencer duck. Started an Instagram called @WaddleAndWeep. His content? Moody selfies and captions like “Just another mallard in a mallrat world.” Shockingly, he got 10,000 followers in a week—mainly pigeons going through their own identity crises.

🌈 The Comeback Quack
Then, one rainy Tuesday, something changed.

Derek found a child’s lost rubber duck by the pond. Its smile was chipped, its yellow faded—but it still floated. Derek stared at it for hours. Something stirred in his feathery little soul.

He stood up. Shook off the moss. Quacked—loudly. And dramatically waddled into the water with the intensity of a duck who had just binge-watched a TED Talk on resilience.

He wasn’t healed. But he was… quacking again. And that was enough.

🪿 Final Thoughts from the Pond
Depression, even in ducks, is no joke. But if Derek taught us anything, it’s that sometimes all you need is a little rubber duck, a few badly-written haikus, and friends who will honk at you until you remember you're not just floating—you’re flocking thriving.

So next time you see a duck staring contemplatively into the abyss, toss them a bread crumb of kindness. Maybe even gluten-free, if you’re feeling extra wholesome.

And remember:

Even the darkest pond has its ripples of hope.
And sometimes, those ripples are just caused by a duck doing a very dramatic belly flop.