The Duck

Right at the beginning, it was obvious he was... off.  Everyone saw it, way before college, even before high school, all they way back to when being "off" didn't matter to anyone.  He never had a girlfriend, he never joined a club; he never did anything of the sort.  He wouldn't talk to anybody.  He just sort of sat there.

It didn't take long before everyone gave up on him, if they gave him a chance in the first place.  And then he took a trip to Disneyland.

It was a weekend vacation for something - his sister's birthday, a wedding, whatever - and when he came back he brought his new souvenir with him.  This would have been okay, if it had been something practical or cool, like a scarf or a sweatshirt or hell, even a stuffed Mickey Mouse doll.

Instead, it was a duck.

That thing shat everywhere it went and kept the whole dorm up at night with its squawking and ran amok because he didn't see fit to close his door.  It ate everything from cafeteria leftovers to roaches to some girl's extensions, and he never apologized for it.  "It's just a duck," he would say.  He thought it was pretty cool.  Everyone else still thought he was a loser.

Campus Safety took it away a few days later and then he left, to go somewhere where ducks were properly appreciated.