A Territorial Drama

Geoffrey S. Poor   |   geoffpoor@gmail.com

Setup: I have traveled through the beautiful countryside to Giun, a tiny Montagnard village on the shores of Lak Lake, where I get an elephant ride. I have taken a walk and am returning to the village.

As I walk slowly back towards Duc’s shop, a territorial drama unfolds before me. Inside a pen with chain link sides are two large sleeping pigs and a white duck. The duck is in a heightened state of alert, staring through the wire at a puppy about half his size who is eyeing a hole under the wire that seems big enough for him to pass through; there are appealing scraps of food on the ground inside. As he approaches the hole, the duck, clearly the leader, gives a loud and staccato “Quack!” and one of the pigs raises his head to look around. The duck quacks his alarm again and the awakened pig gathers himself, rises, and swings around to join the duck and present a united front in the face of this threat. The other pig does not stir.

The puppy assesses the resistance, but, perhaps because of inexperience, decides foolishly to press his attack. He sticks his head under the wire, but the duck and the pig continue simply to stare at him. The puppy slides under the wire until he can stand up again, and in this moment of orientation the defenders pounce. The duck leaps and pecks at the puppy’s head while the pig pushes at his stomach with his snout. The puppy rolls over backward against the wire, waves his feet in the air, and is shoved by beak and snout back out under the fence. He stands, shakes himself, sneezes, barks once and trots away. The pig stares after him, the duck quacks twice to announce the victory, and the second pig remains asleep.