The Committee
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Every morning at seven, the five of them convened at the bend in the reeds, and every morning the meeting proceeded exactly the same way.
The big gander up front called it a democracy. He was, in fact, the only one who ever decided anything, but he liked the sound of the word and used it often. The four behind him had long ago stopped pretending to disagree--it was easier to glide along in his wake, necks bent in identical, dutiful curves, like a row of question marks that had already found their answer.
That morning something in the reeds had shifted. Nothing dramatic--a heron maybe, or just the wind finding a new way through the cattails--but it was enough to stop all five of them mid-glide, heads swiveling toward the same invisible disturbance. For one perfect second, the whole committee agreed on something real.
Then the gander decided it was nothing, and paddled on. The other four followed, because that's what committees do. Behind them their reflections wavered and re-formed in the green water, five purple shadows trailing after five white bodies, arguing a little more honestly than the ducks above them ever would.
Every morning at seven, the five of them convened at the bend in the reeds, and every morning the meeting proceeded exactly the same way.
The big gander up front called it a democracy. He was, in fact, the only one who ever decided anything, but he liked the sound of the word and used it often. The four behind him had long ago stopped pretending to disagree--it was easier to glide along in his wake, necks bent in identical, dutiful curves, like a row of question marks that had already found their answer.
That morning something in the reeds had shifted. Nothing dramatic--a heron maybe, or just the wind finding a new way through the cattails--but it was enough to stop all five of them mid-glide, heads swiveling toward the same invisible disturbance. For one perfect second, the whole committee agreed on something real.
Then the gander decided it was nothing, and paddled on. The other four followed, because that's what committees do. Behind them their reflections wavered and re-formed in the green water, five purple shadows trailing after five white bodies, arguing a little more honestly than the ducks above them ever would.