Steph, Paddy and me went to feed the ducks today. Steph had packed a few bits of stale bed and we drove to a pond that sheÂ’d used to go to as a child
As we arrived at the pond (more like a lake as it turned out) we could only see a swan by the waterÂ’s edge, so we went to say hello. I threw a bit of bread in for the swan. Paddy took one look at the swan and began to cry. Poor lamb. He was scared. Of a swan. The baby coward.
The swan gobbled up the bread, but it was not satiated. It swam towards the bank and looked at me expectantly. I threw more bread. The bread was dispatched. Paddy cried more. The swan had tasted bread now and was hungry for more. It proceeded to get out of the water and advance towards us. It could move fast. Even as a 35 year old man I found this quite frightening. But at least I didnÂ’t cry, like Paddy.
The swan would kill us all and eat all our bread. I kept throwing bits of bread in different directions to try and divert it, but it would just pick them up with its swan beak, eat them and then head towards me as I retreated.
We managed to get away and we still had plenty of bread. Paddy stopped crying. I sent Steph back to get the buggy which we had abandoned close to the waterÂ’s edge. The swan was still quite close to it. I couldnÂ’t go. I had the bread.
We walked round the pond-lake (it was a fair distance) and found a bunch of ducks (that’s the correct collective term) swimming by the shore. There was another swan with them. I threw the first piece of bread to it. I hoped that would keep it happy. Plus there was a step up from the water to the land and I figured this swan couldn’t get out so readily. Paddy immediately began to cry. “Oh Paddy,” I said, “it’s only a swan.” I shook my head at Steph. Imagine begin scared of a swan!
The more bread I threw, the more Paddy cried, so Steph gave him a piece of bread and said, “It’s OK. Why don’t you throw them some bread?” But instead of throwing the stale bread, Paddy ate it. And stopped crying. He hadn’t been scared of the swan at all. He’d been crying because he thought we’d been throwing his lunch to some birds. He had wept through selfish greed, not fear. So it was just me who was scared of the swan. Once again Paddy was close to proving his superiority. Though I thought he’d come off looking a bit childish over the whole “not sharing the stale bread” incident. As I had largely hidden my own fear (I only screamed about twice) I think I still looked best.
As we threw the last of the bread we noticed a small sign near our feet, sticking out of a flower bed. It asked us not to feed the ducks and informed us that bread was not particularly good for them. They probably should have made the sign a bit bigger and put it nearer to the ducks (especially as a father and daughter had just arrived with a great big bag of bread).
Then I realised that the reason Paddy had been crying at us giving the birds bread had not been about greed. He was aware that the bread was too refined for their bird stomachs, that it would do them harm. They were tears of empathy and pity. So concerned had this tiny 16 month old child been to protect the ducks that he had been prepared to eat some of the stale bread himself. But how much could one baby do in a world where so much bread is thrown to so many ducks? How much stale bread can one child eat?
As we left the pond a single tear of frustration and hopelessness fell down his rosy cheek.
