The boy sits and watches the swans. He watches for a long while. The tide goes out and he sees that when it gets low enough the swans can stretch their necks just far enough to reach the plants that grow on the bed of the river. They tear them up and fight over the loose strands that hang from their bills and create a frenzy of feathers and foam and spray, not unlike the piranhas he has seen working at a stray cow in the museum.
Watching the swans he wonders if they realize that the tide has gone out. After-all, there is no reason they shouldn’t think, that it is the river-bed itself that rises and falls periodically.
‘Perhaps’, he concludes, legs dangling above the murky spray, ‘perhaps swans don’t really think anything – at all.’ The arrogant little boy.
