#4.7k

I: find God in heathen beauty

It is a lovely day in the village. A mild yellow sun glows in the gentle blue heavens. Wild begonias and goose droppings follow your path out of the woods and its overcrowded glens and into the airy and beige town. A blacksmithery belches up thick gray smog, its roof low and sagging. You skirt around it the long way, avoiding the main (and only) road. Hard, packed dirt and loose dust stick to the bottom of your damp feet. 

It is a lovely day in the village, but there is one unacceptable problem: you are bored. So you are here looking for some entertainment. As your mother always said: life is about the simple joys. Where to first? A farmer’s shed, inside which the farmer’s daughter spins hay for the twelfth consecutive hour? Eh. Boring. Seen it a million times. And hay makes you itchy. The local tavern, where the innkeeper’s boy balances twelve drinks on an old tray while an unhealthily large midday crowd demands more? Oh no. You know your limits. Where, then, are simple delights to be found in this small town at the foot of the great forests? 

A bright flash gets your long neck swinging around for its source. There, down the path: a broad-shouldered man with a sure-footed stride, his clothes the color of straw. From his belt dangles a shiny gold object. Option one: steal the shiny thing. Option two: leave the man alone and seek other sources of joy. 

Oh, who are you kidding? Peace was never an option. Option one it is. You creep up behind him on silent, bright orange feet. His shiny gold thing, smaller and thinner than you expected, flashes in the face of the sun. A key? Well, it doesn’t matter. Carefully timing your footsteps with his, you extend your neck and…

“What the–? Hey!” The man spins around, but you’ve already flapped backwards, out of his reach. 

Honking obnoxiously, key held firmly in your mouth, you take to the rooftops. Their triangular shapes dip you out of sight. Let him chase the wind. Thoroughly satisfied, you circle around the town in search of more excitement. You cross from one happy, thatched roof to the next. The people passing by on the paths below don’t look up. They never do. 

You wander to the edge of the village, where an adorable two-room cottage straddles the gap between forest and town. The sturdy, wooden-log walls, built with love, hold the roof high over its residents’ heads. An odd assortment of flowers explode from a box in the cottage’s one window. 

The place reeks of death. Ground squirrels and rabbits, beaver pelts and traps. A single wolf head mounted over the table. It’s a hunter’s house. An unnatural metallic smell originates from the tips of the arrows lying on the table, fletched with white feathers from swans or geese–

Options one, two, and three: trash this hunter’s home. 

You swagger through the front door, full of misplaced confidence, and immediately encounter a woman thoroughly scrubbing a pot of beans. She looks down at you. You look up at her, key hidden in your beak. She blinks. Her hair is the color of night and her eyes are pinkish red, like roses, only brighter. Now you’re no human expert, but that’s not right, is it? 

“Don’t tell me,” you say, words garbled by the metal in your mouth, “you’re a swan maiden?”

Hands over mouth, eyes widened, like humans do in surprise. Very human-like, except for the bright red irises blinking at you. “How did you know?”

“Call it a lucky guess,” you suggest. “So, what’s your story? Wait, let me guess: you decided to leave the comforts of heaven and while bathing a hunter stole your feather cloak and now you’re stuck here.”

“Yes!” She cries. “For so long I have withered in this accursed human abode, the seasons have lost their meaning and I fear I have forgotten how to fly–”

“Alright, lady, alright.” A few flaps of your wings, and you land sloppily on the table. No one’s ever accused you of possessing expert flying skills. You waddle to the edge so you can converse with the swan maiden eye to eye, bird to bird. “Look, this hunter–does he have shoulders and, uh, two feet?” Wait, most humans have those things, don’t they? “Does he happen to be wearing a straw-colored shirt today?”

The swan maiden doesn’t blink, but she tilts her head, bird-like, unsure. 

“I see I’ve eliminated no men.” You drop the key at her feet. “Recognize this?”

“That’s it! It’s his!” The unholy shriek that emerges from her throat could only be made by a bird. But her squat, knees jutting to the sky, fingers scrabbling for the key, is very human, you think. “How did you…? Oh, I never thought–”

“Uh-huh, let’s not waste time lady, do you know where he keeps your feather cloak?”

“Yes, of course.” The swan maiden squeezes the key so tightly her whole arm shakes. “Oceans I have wept over it, attempting in vain to open–” She dashes off.

You take a minute to knock every arrow off the table before flapping after her. The swan maiden kneels by a chest in the corner of the bedroom. Shoulders shaking, fingers fumbling–she drops the key four times, swearing continuously. 

“Why are all my arrows on the floor?” Boots scuffing on wooden planks. The whole house rattles when the door slams shut. He’s home. 

Hunters terrify you, but swans are annoying, the clear greater of two evils. You helped the swan maiden anyway, and now you’re stuck in a hunter’s home with a swan, both annoyed and terrified. The universe is laughing at you. 

The lock clicks. Quiet creaking bellows through both rooms like a thunderclap when the swan maiden lifts the old wooden lid. Inside, something soft and white shines. 

“What are you doing?” The hunter, frozen in the doorframe, a fistful of arrows in one hand and a new longbow in the other. 

The swan maiden mirrors him in stillness. His gold key slips from her fingers and clatters loudly to the floorboards. Her unceasing eye contact with the hunter is so deeply human that you wonder if there’s something you’re missing about this swan maiden’s story. 

You hop onto the rim of the chest. Your long neck bows and bends so you can seize the feather cloak with your beak. “Put it on, idiot!” You hiss. 

Webbed feet slip easily on thin wooden rims. You topple backwards into the chest, squawking all the way down. Finally, the hunter notices the water fowl in his bedroom, and his face twists in one of those human expressions that say everything, but only through mazes of lies, and he shouts something unintelligible while you beat your wings ineffectively against layer after layer of soft white feathers, and the swan maiden screams no or maybe don’t and–

II: stumble upon God unaware

Water so clear and blue it could easily be the sky. Sweet reeds and muddy undertones, wafting in between the shallow areas. Pink lotuses and poppy seed. Tufts of white fog, like mist, only denser, peek through the water’s surface. 

You splash around in this picturesque pond, the swan maiden’s feather cloak pinning your wings to your sides. You poke your beak at the perfectly clear sky, twisting your neck this way and that. Muddy ponds, mangroves, and lush aquatic plants as far as your eyes can see. Pristine and undisturbed. You quack once, defiant and disgruntled by the beauty of it all. 

“Greetings, new arrival!” A large white trumpeter swan glides across the pond. “Welcome to heaven, where the ponds mirror the sky and the vegetation always flourishes. You shall never fear the hunters or the wolves again.”

You tramp out of the pond and settle in the reeds, with the soggy feather cloak settling over you like a blanket. “This is…swan heaven.”

“What else?” The trumpeter swan does not follow you out of the water, instead maintaining a dignified distance. One glossy white wing lifts regally, indicating all of swan heaven. “Here, every swan shall relax in the thousands of ponds we call home. Here, every swan shall find joy until the end of infinity. Here–”

“You know, eternal happiness sounds great and all,” you interrupt, “but I am a goose.”

The wing lowers unceremoniously. The trumpeter swan paddles a bit closer to inspect you. “So you are.”

Underneath the swan feather cloak are two wings, somehow both brown and white in color. Sticking out is a neck that is neither long and elegant like a swan nor short and stubby like a duck. For you are a goose. 

“There must be some mistake,” you explain. “See, this is a swan maiden’s feather cloak that I was trying to return to its owner–I didn’t mean to put it on. But I did and clearly I was recognized as a swan and sent here. So.”

The swan skillfully utilizes all that excess neck length to loom over you. “We do not make mistakes.” The neck retracts into its usual slender S-shape. “But please do return it.”

“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought.” You begin the arduous process of shrugging the cloak off your wings. Funny that just putting on a heavenly swan’s cloak will send a goose to heaven. “By the way, does anything happen when I take it off?”

“Yes, of course, you silly goose.” The swan seizes a mouthful of cloak in order to tug it off you. So it is in a comically muffled voice that the swan proclaims: “You will be sent to goose hell.”

Then the swan tugs two more times, but fruitlessly, for you have frozen with your own beak gripping the cloak tightly. One desperate yank frees the cloak from the swan’s grip. 

“What!” You squawk, hastily wrapping the cloak snug around your wings again. “Why!? I’m not dead!”

“It’s for your own good,” the swan says patronizingly, and beckons you over with graceful flicks of that long swan neck. “Now give it here.”

“No!” You wiggle away through the reeds at full speed, trampling the delicate grass underfoot. You scan heaven’s horizon for hiding spots. The mangroves, the reedy marches, or the open lake? 

“You’ll get there eventually!” The swan lives up to the “trumpeter” title, but does not condescend to chase after you. “There’s nowhere for a goose to hide in swan heaven!” 

When this argument fails to persuade you, the swan lifts off the glassy pond surface, flies smooth circles around the water, and trumpets for the whole of heaven to hear: “There is a goose with a swan’s heavenly cloak! Someone get the cloak! Someone stop that goose!”

You disappear into the mangroves, where the trees tear feathers from the cloak and the insects flee in terror. Blooming life and sinking rot swamp your senses. Sunlight trickles through the interlocking leaf canopy by teaspoons. But the swan calls follow you deep into the twisting roots and branches. Warning: there is a goose loose in swan heaven! No one knows where the goose is going. No one knows what the goose will do–least of all the goose!

III: our righteous fears

Now what? The entire population of swan heaven is hunting you, and you are trapped in here, lost somewhere in the heavenly mangroves. All because you decided to meddle ere’the business of some idiot swan maiden. So what now? You have no idea how to get back home, and you can’t ask a resident swan for fear they’ll take the heavenly cloak from you. You can’t just waddle out of swan heaven, presumably. That wouldn’t be very heavenly of it. Actually, why presume? Might as well discover the geography of swan heaven yourself. Perhaps this is a way out. 

A faint rumble, some kind of shush-shush-shush, like running water over rocks, creeps into your hearing range. You take off in pursuit of its source. Perhaps this is a way out. 

You splash through tiny pools, mud splattering up your skinny construction orange legs. Greedy roots grow thick as branches. Your body barely squeezes through the gaps left by the skinny tree trunks. You fear the trees ripping the cloak free with every passing branch. 

What would goose hell even look like? An endless desert? A world full of hunters? Well, you wouldn’t fear the hunters after going to hell. So perhaps not. 

A while later, the mangroves curl to a stop, leaves draping over the treetops to make way for a small clearwater pond. A family of swans circling its center watch you crash through the trees, nonplussed. Their non-reaction encourages you to wade into their little pond. 

The smallest swan of the bunch swims up to you the way one might approach a curious new specimen. “You are an ugly swan.”

How rude! How disrespectful! Really, swans have got to raise their children better. You peck the cygnet on the head. “Not as ugly as you.”

While the little swan prepares an indignant retort, some striking familiarities tickle the back of your mind. All of these swans have black feathers, red beaks, and pinkish red eyes like roses, only meaner. 

“By any chance, have you recently lost a family member to an ill-advised earthly excursion?” 

No, say the swan family’s body language, and also who is this weird ugly swan? 

“She has red eyes and a voice,” you add helpfully. 

“Oh, so we did,” one of the larger swans recalls. A proper ruffling of feathers later and they all start swimming away from you. “Whatever became of her?” The swan muses to the others. 

“Well–she’s trapped as a human!” You paddle furiously after them. “Hey! Aren’t you concerned? Aren’t you going to get her back?”

Perhaps you shouldn’t ask that so loudly when the solution is currently draped around you, but outrage gets the better of you.

“Good heavens! What barbarous ideas the younger generations come up with!” Another large swan with a cherry-colored beak clucks condescendingly at you. “No, we certainly shall not be leaving heaven. Good day to you.”

But you don’t find it to be a good day, and you aren’t inclined to say goodbye just yet. You chase after this indifferent family and get in their way. “How did you forget her? Why can’t you leave?”

“They’re way too scared to do that,” one of the cygnets says unexpectedly. “I mean, infinite happiness is too much to lose, right?”

“Is this infinite happiness, then?”

“Yes,” the cherry-beaked swan quacks decisively, covering the cygnets with one outstretched wing. “Let us leave,” the large swan instructs them. 

“Hey!” You slide around their little flock, attempting to find the cygnet who called you ugly. “You know it’s not so much better here than earth, right?” Finally, you find the right cygnet, with the correct ratio of light gray fluffiness to puny size. You stick your beak through the large swans and their tight formation to get right up in the cygnet’s face. “Aren’t you curious why your sister left?”

The large swans yank the cygnet out of the pond and away from you with their beaks. They swing their heads toward prettier sights, winging around you on all sides. Their webbed feet kicking at you is the only response you receive. But the fluffy gray cygnet looks back, just once, before all the cygnets disappear behind a wall of black feathers. 

“Unbelievable,” you honk at their retreating tails. 

Well, it’s like your mother always said: some people just can’t see the pond for the reeds. You give up and return to swimming after the sound of rushing water. “If you’re so busy being afraid of leaving heaven,” you mutter to yourself, “then it’s not really heaven, is it?”

A little creek leads out of the swan family’s pond in the direction of running water, so you head that way mindlessly. Freshwater runs your feet clean. They dry quickly on the half-submerged, warm river stones. 

You tuck the heavenly cloak into every crevice your beak can reach, lining up swan feather with goose feather. You’re not going to end up in goose hell just because this stupid swan maiden cloak fell off. If you are to go to hell, then it will be in glory, with grace, with a honking that puts the hunters’ war horns to shame; a bang, not a whimper, not quietly unnoticed, and certainly not by accident. 

With the swan cloak tucked as tightly as goosely possible, you slide into the river and allow the busybody currents to carry you downstream. A little bit of webbed-foot action for steering is all the effort you exert as the glorious spring green sights of swan heaven sweep by. Shrubbery and woody trees clear space for the creek to crash forth. Another creek feeds into your creek, which soon merges with another, then another. Soon all the waters of swan heaven swirl into a roaring river, wider than a fully-grown evergreen is tall. 

You squelch your way up a large, pointy and gray river stone, splashing a great deal of water about in order to free yourself from the river’s all-consuming current. Webbed feet plastered to the damp, smooth slope, body nestled against the top for balance; a semi-uncomfortable viewpoint of the river’s mouth. It is from this view that you see the waterfall running over the edge of heaven. 

IV: reflect God’s face

Despite your half-formed hopes, you never believed swan heaven had a limit. Yet here it is: a bellowing waterfall, crashing over moon-white rocks and the fluffy indication of clouds into the cheerful blue void below. The roaring culmination of heaven’s mighty river.

Beyond the waterfall lies the whole world, spread like a painting on an easel. Cumulus clouds drifting like flocks of sheep. The waterfall disappears into their misty white mysteries. Their swiftly-moving shapes part briefly, and in that celestial window shines snow-covered mountain tops. Perhaps you should’ve guessed that heaven rests on the tops of clouds, because its location seems so stupidly obvious now. Of course it’s in the sky. Where else? 

If only you could appreciate all this natural splendor. But scattered around the river’s mouth, on wet stones and rough rocks, stands a council of swan elders. All shapes and colors and sizes, but even the smallest is twice your size. Silent and watching as you spelunk through their majestic, beautiful river, but unlike the swan maiden’s family, their impassiveness does not soothe you. Still, they can pry the nonchalance out of your cold, dead feathers. 

“Hello, my fellow…feathery friends!” You call. “New arrival here. I don’t suppose you can tell me where the new swans get to live?”

The largest amongst them, a terrifying whitish brown swan monopolizing the smoothest white river stone, inclines a neck as long as you in a distanced version of condescension. “You are not a swan.”

You flap your wings in mock outrage. “Whaaat? How could you…yeah okay, I’m a goose. So what?” 

“Return the swan feather cloak you are wearing,” a black-necked swan commands. “It belongs to a heavenly swan.” Not a horrid goose, remains only implied. 

“Listen, I would love to.” You demonstrate this enthusiasm by flying closer to the black-necked swan, choosing a little rock just outside of wing range as your landing place. “But. But! I’ve been told that taking it off will send me straight to hell and that just doesn’t seem very fair when I haven’t even died. And between you and me, her family doesn’t seem too keen on getting her back. Honestly, I think swan heaven ought to raise its standards. You’re letting in some real mid-tier riff-raff.” 

This passionate speech moves nothing but water. The river’s gushing is your only applause. But if you thought appealing to swans’ empathetic natures stood a chance of success, you would’ve tried it already. And let’s be real, you’re not truly trying. 

A very fluffy and very, very large tundra swan chooses to break the silence. “You are dead.”

Shush shush, the river warns. 

You wobble on your little rock. “Huh? No. No. I’m not dead. Definitely not. I’d know.”

“Apparently not.” A black swan infuses so much dryness into those two words you can’t believe you’re all standing over a river.

A giant whooper swan flaps both wings once without taking off. The generated wind washes over the river, and with it an image ripples on the water’s mercurial surface: you in the hunter’s home. Squirming in the oak chest. The hunter, frozen in the doorway, but not for long enough. He drops all of his arrows, save for one which he strings expertly. Draws his bow, with that lightning quick, stone-cold certainty only hunters have, and the swan maiden howls at him to stop, but he ignores her and the swan feathers blind you and you twist and twist and the arrow flies–

White foam wipes the memory away. No swan speaks up. I warned you, whispers the river. But not until this moment do you feel it: the arrow cleaving you in two. A blazing trail of fire smashing through organs and muscles and bones. Death’s teeth sinking in, gnawing, carving you open at long last. 

“You are already in hell,” the whooper swan states. 

This is hell. Goose hell. Goose hell is swan heaven. Another obvious observation you should’ve made except that you, it turns out, are one stupid goose. 

“But it’s not that bad here,” you croak. 

The swans offer you looks of disdain and pity that says pathetic. 

“Then you will not mind returning the heavenly cloak,” a trumpeter swan concludes. 

Again with the stupid swan cloak. Why do they care so much when her own family can’t be bothered? This one is obvious, even to you: they don’t give a damn about the swan maiden or her feather cloak. They don’t care about anything at all so long as their heaven remains goose-free. That’s what lies at the end of infinity: total apathy. Because this is about you. Disrupting their perfect apathy, threatening their smug intolerance. Terrorizing heaven and the swans who call it home. 

Oh, you’ll show them true terror if it kills you. A terrible, no-good, absolutely idiotic plan springs into your head. It’s too stupid to be believed. But you haven’t got any other ideas. 

You, apparently possessing no significant intelligence, fly from rock to rock, passing within wing range of the enormous swan elders. Their necks crane to track your movements, but no one moves a feather. Why should they? You’re completely surrounded by swans. 

Finally, you finagle a spot on the smooth white stone with the terrifying whitish brown swan, who looms even larger and scarier up close. Unnerving by those soulless black eyes and frightening by design. Still, the swans wait. You’ll hand over the cloak yourself now that you understand the futility of your struggle. Right?

“I understand what this place is now,” you say.

“Oh, do you?” The whitish brown swan says scornfully, and indicates with graceful motions made possible by that long white neck that every swan should listen. “Everyone, the goose has got a name for heaven. Well, tell us then. What is it?”

You ruffle your small wings that are neither properly white nor properly brown, and crane your short neck until it is almost as long as the swans’ elegant, bowing necks. And you do not smile, for geese cannot, but answer in a terrible, thunderous voice that will topple tyrants from their thrones:

“A JOKE.”

Then you bite the terrifying swan on the neck, as hard as you can, and spring into the air with the panicked spontaneity only a goose can muster. You yank that swan’s neck as you go, tearing feathers loose and chomping through skin. The swan unleashes a wild squawk, and outraged honks from all of the swans follow, as all are forced into action by your sudden, foolish behavior. 

“You horrid creature!” The swan shrieks. Rose red blood spills onto cloud white feathers. “Stop the goose! Stop the goose!”

The swans take to the air by the dozens, but not gracefully like you expected, and not rushing you all at once. Waiting and waiting and waiting for someone else to go first. Cawing, flapping those glossy wings aimlessly, unsettled and enraged. Ancient swan fury versus one goose’s haphazard plan to catch dozens of swans by surprise and wing it the rest of the way. 

You got the first move and you don’t waste it. Every flap of your wings thrusts you away from the swans, towards the edge of heaven, to the endless sky, the endless fall. A beak grasps your foot, teeth sinking in, gnawing when you snap around, wings battering the swan’s head, feet kicking. The swan’s grip slips, tearing your webbed foot in the process, but no pain registers. 

You fly faster than you have in your life, like your life depends on it–because it’s obvious, isn’t it? That it does–and your flight swoops you past the water mill, over their heavenly waterfall where the swans do not dare follow. The line in the stones that they do not dare cross, painted clearer than snow in sunlight by where their webbed feet stop. Hissing and honking up a storm, but their kwak kwaks are drowned out fully by the plangent song of the falls. 

Your flying stops when they stop. Your wings wrap around the swan maiden’s salvation, hold it close to your body, and you plunge, pelted by waterfall spray, honking victoriously, tumbling out of heaven like an autumn leaf in the dizzying, endless blue, saying goodbye to the clouds by the path you tear through them, and the fall steals your breath, but you pray, at least you’ll go out in glory, you’ll die but you’ll do it gloriously, and second chance, please, reincarnate?, can’t die twice, hope, and heavens, happy, horror, lovely, liar, fury, fire, poppy, prayer, splendor, slayer, wonder, wearer, thunder, terror–

V: God has slipped the noose

Sweet petrichor and early spring sprouts. Dawn, dusty orange and boiling red. A murderous horizon birthing a fresh day of sunlit glades and fireside stories. Wild begonias bless the parched ground and the forgotten corners of the world, where life meets decay. Roses bloom in the window of the tiny two-room cottage by the woods. Inside lives a mysterious woman with hair the color of ash and eyes of fire. Sometimes, she leaves sedges and seeds out for the local wild goose. Sometimes the villagers see her squatting, speaking and laughing as if she and the goose are holding an actual conversation. But no one questions it, and no one speaks ill of her inhuman eyes either. She’s brought near-daily rains to the town, proper spring showers that ended their drought, ever since the hunter disappeared.

In the village, a baker sharpens an old knife in the treacherous morning light. Your attention is stolen not by the baker’s small selection of sweet breads, but by the bird carving in the shop. It’s shiny. You simply must have it. This combination–human and knife–ought to be lethal for every sort of water fowl, but that won’t stop you from finding out for yourself. You don’t yet know your limits. 

A glorious golden sun glows in the wide blue heavens as you saunter, full of decently-placed confidence, down the only road in town. Today, in your expert opinion, is a rather fine day. Life is good, but it’s about to get better. 

It is a lovely day in the village and you are a horrible goose. 

NOTES

The title and subtitles all come from “Most Wanted” by Mohja Kahf 

The first and last line come from the Untitled Goose Game, as well as “peace was never an option.” 

Well me and @4point7 were gonna do a mini joint celebration once I hit 4.7 but it's been a crazy couple of days and now I'm thinking it's a bit late 😬

🎉💜🎉 HAPPY 4.7k GUYS 🎉💜🎉

😩 i swear i can never thank yall enough for your endless support, encouraging & sweet words, and words of comfort whenever i'm not feeling best. thank you all for cheering me on and making me a better person by giving me advice and love when i most needed, i'm forever grateful 😫

thank you for always being so patient and understanding when i never have the time to post or be active and always being the sweetest human beings ever but always assuring and telling me that it's fine, you all are angels i dont deserve tbh 😭😭