The Prophet from Tennessee

            Like most children, I grew up with a healthy fear of geese. Until last summer, I had never had reason to bother these wrathful creatures, let alone get close enough to admire them. But in the summer of 2020, when my college friend, Payton, invited me to his family’s floating cabin in LaFollette, Tennessee, I found myself quite literally living in goose territory.

            I arrived at Norris Lake in mid-May, when all the ducklings and goslings were freshly hatched and still covered in soft down. The mallard and wood ducklings matured gracefully, but the baby geese…well, let’s just say they looked worse before they looked better. Their necks and talons lengthened; their beaks curved downwards into disapproving frowns; they began to traverse the lake’s surface with more speed and urgency. Yet, their grey fuzz lingered for an uncomfortably long time.

            Undoubtedly, the strangest thing about this gaggle of geese was their family dynamic, made up of three adults and eleven children. And what a sight they were: fourteen lanky things, mostly covered in fur, gliding in perfect synchronicity with all their dark eyes fixed on a single point.  They moved in formation, but you never saw them coming. They were simply there or not there, within eyesight until they weren’t. And trust me—you should have been able to spot those things a mile away.

            Payton and I theorized that our amphibious neighbors were swingers. We called them velociraptors, owing to their striking resemblance to their prehistoric ancestors. We even accused them of being disguised surveillance drones once they started to loiter near our cabin with unforgiving stares. We watched in dismay as eleven children were whittled down to ten, and then nine, and then eight. These eight eventually shed the last of their down, becoming homogenous with their three parents. Eleven identical geese were, somehow, an even more unnerving sight than the original fourteen. 

            Eventually the geese stopped making their rounds. We assumed they’d migrated for good—whether that was to Mexico or simply to another offshoot of the lake, we didn’t ask. I must admit I didn’t miss them all too much. The marina where I lived was a constant cacophony of events and celebrations, so there were plenty of other things to focus on.

            One evening, Payton and I were relaxing on the front deck of our floating cabin, waiting for the bats in our roof to depart for the evening (yes, we had hundreds of bats living in our roof, but that’s a story for another time). Across the marina, I noticed a strange shape. Unable to shake my curiosity, I hopped in the kayak and paddled over. The lake was eerily still at twilight and a pit began to form in my stomach as I neared the mass. I could make out a floating log, but what was on top of it? How was it balancing?

            At last, I cleared the shadow of the farthest floating cabin in the lagoon and the mysterious figure came into light. It was one of the geese! He had been injured; one of his wings hung limply in the water and his body frame leaned to counterbalance the weight of it. In that final shred of daylight, the creature didn’t look at all robotic or cruel, like I had always thought. He looked helpless. It dawned on me then that it had been weeks since I had seen the rest of his family. They had left him behind.

            I had no means with which to help the goose, so I paddled home sadly. I wasn’t even sure if he could still swim. The sinking feeling in my stomach told me that he most likely wouldn’t survive through the night. I tried to put the poor thing out of my mind.

            A few days later, I took my paddleboard out on the water for a yoga session. I began my practice and, as usual, the current gently drifted me away from my starting point. Only a few sun salutations in, however, I spotted a goose. I stopped dead in my tracks. Could it be the one? All the other geese had left; this was the first I’d seen in a long while.

            Sure enough, the straggler was the injured one that I had condemned to die a few days prior. It still looked worse for the wear, dragging his crumpled wing in the water as it paddled furiously with its webbed feet. Nonetheless, it was swimming! It hovered cautiously near my paddleboard as I completed my prone series, seemingly unbothered by its disability.

            When I got back to the cabin, I announced the news of the goose’s reappearance to Payton, who had also been thoroughly invested in its survival. We agreed that the goose possessed a sort of otherworldly quality; though not Godly, perhaps it bore wisdom from the heavens. After all, it did seem as though it had been rebirthed from the lake after escaping certain death! Thus, we dubbed this goose “The Prophet.” Still skeptical as to whether it would survive, we watched it carefully for divine signs.