"The Swans & The Goose" by Charotte Edwards

It was an ordinary day.  Reading s short story written by Charlotte Edwards titled "The Swans & the Goose."  Story began with...On the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where we live, the gentle waters run in and out like fingers slimming at the tips.  They curl into the smaller creeks  and coves like tender palms.  The Canada geese know this, as do the fat, white swans, and the ducks that ride an inch above the waves of the Chesapeake Bay as they skim their way into the harbor.  In the autumn they come home for the winter by the thousands.  In hunting season, the air is filled with the sound of guns. The shores are scattered with blinds; the creeks and rivers with duck and goose decoys.  The swans are a different matter entirely.  Protected by law, they move toward the shores in a stately glide, their tall heads proud and unafraid.  They lower their long necks deep into the water, where their strong beaks dig through the river bottoms for food.  Between the arrogant swans and the prolific geese there is indifference, almost a disdain.  Once or twice each year, snow and sleet move into the area.  When this happens, if the river is at its narrowest or the creek shallow, there is a freeze that hardens the water to ice.  It was on such a morning, near Oxford, Maryland, that a friend of mine set the breakfast table and poured the coffee beside the hugh window that looked out from her house on the Tred Avon River.  Across the waters beyond the dock, the snow laced the rim of the shore in white. For a moment she stood quietly, looking at what the night's storm had painted.  Suddenly she leaned forward and peered close to the frosted window.  "It really is!" she cried aloud.  "There's a goose out there."  She reached to the bookcase and pulled out a pair of binoculars.  Into their sights came the figure of a large Canada goose, very still, its wings folded tight to its sides, its feet frozen to the ice.  Then from the dark skies, white against its lackluster, she saw a line of swans.  They moved in their own singular formation--graceful, intrepid and free.  They crossed from the west of the broad creek, high above the house, moving steadily to the east.  As my friend watched, the leader swung to the right.  Then the white string of birds became a white circle.  It floated from the top of the sky downward.  At last, as easy as feathers coming to earth, the circle landed on the ice.  My friend was on her feet now, with one unbelieving look and against her mouth.  As the swans surrounded the frozen goose, she feared that what life he still had might be pecked out by those great swan bills.  Instead, amazingly, those bills began to work on the ice.  The long necks were lifted and curved down, again and again, as deliberately as a pick swung over the head of a fisherman cutting a free space for his winter rod.  It went on for a long time.  At last the goose was rimmed by a narrow margin of ice instead of the entire creek.  The swans rose again, following the leader, and hovering in that circle, awaiting the results of their labors.  The goose's head was lifted, its body pulled.  Then the goose was free and standing on the ice.  He was moving his big, webbed feet slowly.  And the swans stayed in the air over him, watching.  Then, as if he had cried, "I cannot fly," four of the swans flew down around him.  Their powerful beaks scraped the goose's wings from top to bottom, scuttled under its wings, and rode up its body, chipping off and melting the ice held in the feathers.  Slowly, as if testing, the goose spred its wings as far as they would go, brought them together, accordion-like, and spread them again.  When at last the wings reached their full span, the four swans took off and joined the hovering group.  They resumed their eastward journey in perfect, impersonal formation to a secret destination.  Behind them, rising with incredible speed and joy, the goose moved into the sky.   He followed them, flapping double-time, until he caught up, until he joined the last of the line--like a small, dark child at the end of a crack-the-whip of older boys.  My friend watched them until they disappeared over the tips of the furthest trees.  Only then did she realize that tears were running down her cheeks, and she had no idea as to how long she had been crying.  This is a true story.  It happened.  I did not try to interpret it.  I just think of it in the bad moments, and from it comes a hopeful question:  if so for birds, why not for us?  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.