We are going to look at some swans. The park we’re at serves as a swan hospital where caretakers tend to the injured birds until they’re healthy. Then they get to hang out here for the rest of their lives. 

I share a bond with the man who has brought me here. It’s the bond of two people with nothing better to do. Our eyes are adjusting to the sunlight as we take in the scenery, welcoming the smell of pond water and fresh spring leaves. A woman with a high ponytail and a plastic see-through visor is walking towards us, wearing high fishing boots. Her hair is white. 

The man I’m with has placed his hand on my shoulder. Leaning in earnestly, he says he hopes the swans will make me happy. I feel comforted by his words. I have known him for longer than I have been unhappy.

“You’re Patrick.” The woman’s nodding head is in sync with her enthusiastic handshake.

“Thanks for setting this up.”

“They love it when people visit.”

“Who?” I regret asking as it dawns on me that she is referring to the swans. 

“This one wanted to see.” Patrick moves away from me. 

“Great. I’m Sheila.” 

She points to a stone cottage where Patrick and I will stand next to a podium with a guestbook not unlike one found at a funeral. I will sign with a fake name to show off for Patrick and he will do the same only to remember that he’s already revealed his name to our guide.

I could ask Sheila what made her choose this life. Waking up early to care for the birds every day. I like swans. I find them understated, yet elegant. I’m hoping that their beauty will move me to tears. If it doesn’t, I will drink a glass of fine scotch.

My fake name Annabelle is a joke between the two of us. It started when we met at a party in a loft. They’d locked everyone in overnight. The only way out was a freight elevator that someone I didn’t know had the keys to. 

I noticed Patrick standing by his friends and decided that he was the most brilliant and attractive person in the room. I knew I was going to leave the party whether it was through a window or, more reasonably, down the elevator. I wanted to talk to Patrick first. In the main room, I positioned myself in front of his group. People were heading in to dance, so I watched it all happen for a while. Everyone seemed well dressed but also like they didn’t care about anything. I was in the middle of it. I hoped that Patrick would bump into me and apologize. He did. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how the joke started. We both like the name Annabelle.

*

The first swan dies by a large pond that stretches throughout the sanctuary. Patrick is discussing lunch options with Sheila. I have wandered off, so I’m the only one to make eye contact with the swan before it simply kneels down and falls to its side. After waiting a few moments and tilting my head to match the sleeping gaze of the bird, I step as close to it as I dare. I pick up a stick and prod at the swan in a way I hope is gentle and non-invasive. I walk back to the others.

“The swan isn’t moving.”

“Which one?” our guide asks me as she tucks something in her left boot.

“The one by the pond.” I look to Patrick for support, but if he has heard anything he doesn’t acknowledge it.

“Let’s go look.” A stream of sunlight is casting an eerie glow over Sheila’s eyes through her orange, plastic sunhat. 

When we arrive, it’s still not moving. I motion to the stick I used to poke the swan, feeling as though a modest silence is appropriate in memory of the bird. The others will soon realize it’s dead. Maybe Sheila will cry. Or she’ll apologize to us, as if it’s her fault. She’ll go home to her partner saddened by the day’s events and they’ll say, don’t worry love. Don’t worry.

Patrick sneers at me. “I’m surprised you’re not filming this.”

“A dead swan?”

“Come on now.”

I turn to Sheila. “Are you going to clear it up?”

“They’re magnificent creatures.”

She is smiling at the bird as if it is doing something incredible. Patrick is smirking because that is the closest he can get to expressing joy.

“Come with me,” says our guide as she begins to walk down the narrow paved path, towards some shrubbery and what I believe is a cherry blossom tree. I want to wear my sunglasses but I have left them in the car. I could benefit from a plastic visor like Sheila’s. 

And the poor dead bird. Perhaps they haven’t noticed it. 

“Is this okay?” I ask Patrick. “Are you having a good time?”

I haven’t been out with him much. I live in San Francisco and he lives here. Most of the time we’ve spent together has been in a dark bedroom or at the parties. Sometimes we will go look at art together. It was at the galleries where I noticed Patrick usually looks at things very deeply, or at least he pretends to.

One time I watched him hold a clear umbrella behind his back as he stuck his nose alarmingly close to a nude figure—a painting. He likes to explain the history of things as we pass them. It makes me feel like I am in a lecture I haven’t signed up for. 

Two swans are floating in the pond as our guide motions for us to stop. She waves to some more people coming to join. I was not aware that we’d be doing a tour of the whole place and that there would be a crowd. We shift around as though we are playing musical chairs but standing. Everyone has formed a semi-circle around our guide, and she begins to talk about the swans as if they are mates performing some rare display of affection.

They’re dead though. Their necks are hidden underwater, and their bodies have flopped to the side. It looks as though one of them is gradually sinking. The swaying of their feathered tails, bobbing in the pond, reminds me of the way an egg looks when it floats.

I pull Patrick to the side. “Those swans are dead.”

“Always so morbid.” 

“Can’t you see them?”

“Is this one of your clever games?”

“No, I’m upset.”

Patrick says nothing and looks up to the sky. I can’t read his eyes because he is rather tall.

“Want to ditch the group?” I ask. 

“Bad.”

“So?”

“Sheila has invited us into her home.”

“This isn’t her home. It’s her place of work.”

“Not just her place of work, her passion.”

“Remind me how many jobs you’ve had?”

He smiles. “When I was seventeen, I had a job selling Christmas trees in a market.”

“They don’t really have tree stands in a market anymore, do they?”

“That was probably the year you were born.”

“And now, what is your job?”

“Your chaperone.”

“Do go on.”

“Your muse. Your guide. Your educator.”

“Please stop.”

“You love it.”

“Taking me to see a bunch of dying swans.”

“I find them rather energetic.”

We are led through more trees with blossoms on them. I could make the most of this by listening to the sounds of darting birds, taking in the smell of honeysuckle. Visitors are still shaking hands and introducing themselves as we walk. They talk about ideas they have for the park. The brilliance of it all. They make grandiose statements about what they want to learn here. I overhear someone say they’re from the media. Will they be reporting on the swans that are dying? 

And what brought me here? At one point I believed this would make me feel calm. Patrick lags behind with me. 

“What about lunch?” I ask.

“We can show up late and say we got lost.”

Before I met Patrick at the party in the loft, I was bored and wanted to leave. Instead of pooling our energy to find the key for the elevator, we fucked and that turned out to be better than leaving. Then we grabbed a bottle of gin and climbed to the roof of the building. I remember admiring Patrick’s agility as he lowered the fire escape for me and took my hand. Neither of us preferring the drink, we settled with what we had and mixed it with some soda water from my bag. It tasted warm and stale. 

We stayed there listening to the music thump from underneath us trying to recognize songs as they got darker and heavier into the morning. Patrick called one of his friends and they came to let us in through a door on the roof. When we came down, the elevator was running, and I wondered if it had been all along.       

And what if I’m imagining this?

Patrick and I are far off the main path now. We walk past some more swans that aren’t moving, their necks twisted together as if they tried to touch their beaks in a final kiss. 

I notice a couple more on top of one another, near a rotting log. Patrick only nods when I point them out. For a while we stop talking.   

“I know a swan is just a common bird,” I say.

“Not to you.” 

“They’re all dying.”

“What’s going on with you?”

“Can’t you see them? They’re dead.”

Twigs snap under our boots. Feeling them break ignites a sense of competition in me, as if I could get him to listen if I keep stepping harder to make more noise.  

The smell of the air has grown stale. Maybe the swans have already started decomposing. I want to reach out and touch the swans, as if my doing so would let them all know that I’m sorry. 

I’m sorry I came. I’m sorry this is happening to you.

Sophie Mccreesh is a writer living in Toronto. She is the author of Once More, With Feeling published by Doubleday Canada.

Image by Evan Walmsley @slushiepie