I have always wanted an enemy. Someone who I could plot against and compete with, knowing that they were doing the same against me. You always know where you stand with an enemy – at odds. An enemy respects your ambitions and loathes your successes. You fuel each other with your mutual spite.

Being enemies with someone is a kind of partnership, a light hostility to spice up your day. I’ve had a few competitive friendships before, and a few school rivalries, but never a true nemesis.

Until I met the Evil One.

It was a normal afternoon. I was playing some music and on my way home from a walk. Out of nowhere, this thing started charging at me on the footpath. Beak open, hissing, coming closer and closer. Unrelenting.

An angry male duck. A drake with a vendetta and a taste for human ankles. I did my best to shoo him away and held out my jacket to make myself look big and scary. This works against other drakes I’ve encountered, but not the Evil One. He kept coming, mouth open wide, hate in his eyes. I kicked towards him but that just seemed to anger him further.

My intimidation dance was failing miserably and, on the side of a busy main road in full view of school pick-up traffic, I ran away from a duck.

This continued in a series of interactions that ended up in this weird sort of dance, where I tried to show the duck who was boss and he tried to show me who was boss until I ran away in fear of my ankles being bitten.

Finally, the Evil One pulled a move that really stumped me. I didn’t see him at the start of my walk and hoped that on the return trip, he would still be laying low away from the footpath. But the sneaky little thing had a different plan.

He stood in the middle of the only section of the footpath that has no alternative route. A busy road on one side, dense spiky bushes on the other. No nature strip to run along. Nowhere else to go. I waited, about twenty metres away from him, weighing up my options. The Evil One stared at me. I stared back.

There were two options.

One: soldier on, charge straight through the duck, hoping my jeans protect me from duck-bite. And even if he did bite, I’d keep on. I’d march forward with a duck hanging from my leg like a true hero.

Two: wait for a rare break in traffic and run across the road. The coward’s choice.

The duck made a move towards me, an intense waddle that seemed to happen in slow motion. Even so far away, his beak was open and his eyes were wide. He was ready for the taste of my delicious ankles.

I froze for a second and then, I’m sad to say, took the road less travelled by.

I took the coward’s way out.