Anger. Not reserved for flamingos anymore.

I remember the first time I saw a swan. I was eight years old and had finally received the all clear from my doctor to exit my bubble and visit the outside world. Well the first thing I asked my parents to do, naturally, was to take me to the zoo, to see one of these lions I had been hearing so much about. Unfortunately my parents were gambling addicts and had spent any potential zoo money on a shady donkey race at the back of a pub so I was firmly informed, “You’ll see just as many animals at the lake”. This is why, on my first viewing of a swan, I was initially led to believe by my manipulative mother that it was a flamingo. “Why isn’t it pink?” I asked innocently, only to be met with the harsh reply, “Why don’t you shut the hell up and enjoy the flamingos?” Despite the years of therapy incidents such as this have led to, I’ll always remember the first time I saw a swan. How its white body glided across the water, how it searched for bread being thrown by old people with no grandchildren to pester and how it started to chase my mother and I after she threw a particularly large stone in its direction. Maybe that’s why the idea of an anger swan is so appealing to me; because my first memory of a swan will always be marred by the anger I feel towards flamingos for being such a letdown when I finally saw them, 10 years later, at a real zoo.