[Thoughts of a Gosling – Short Story with Moral Lesson]
Thoughts of a Gosling - Short Story with Moral Lesson
If you ever happen to visit the northern states of US, you won’t miss to encounter the Canada geese population particularly during spring through summer. A Canada goose is a wonderful, monogamous, a very social but a bit aggressive and migrating bird which is often considered as a pest by humans rather than a welcome. They are incredibly good and caring parents – both father and mother unlike other related species and a family typically comprises 3-8 goslings. It is a gift of nature to watch these goslings swim across the lakes along a straight line with the father and mother swimming at front and back respectively.
While I was staying in Minnesota – a land of 10000 lakes and no wonder a place of heaven for these creatures, I had often come across families of geese crossing busy roads in the same fashion as it would swim across lakes without waiting for man-made signals. Usually responsible drivers including me would stop until they cross the road safely and some impatient guys would honk to expedite them.
One morning while I was driving to office, I could see a commotion in traffic in front and slowed down my car to have a glimpse from close. The scene was a complete havoc and I was very disturbed to see a small gosling struggling for life in the middle of the road holding its last breath after being hit by some vehicle, with both the helpless father and mother geese standing alongside hoping for some miracle to happen but not at all prepared to leave that place and meanwhile the panic had caused the other two goslings to run here and there across the busy road, risking their lives and causing the traffic to come to a halt. A young gosling typically has a yellowish brown texture which blends very well with nature and is completely obstruent from its predators. This very same gift of nature had turned out to be a curse for that poor gosling on that day as it would be difficult for the drivers to spot these goslings on the brown roads especially during sunny days.
Somehow I managed to pull my vehicle out of that place and reached office, but for the whole day I could not help my thoughts out of that incident. I felt very bad that day that I could have carried that ailing gosling across the road and after all there is a lake on the other side of the road which tempted the goose family to cross the road in the first place. I was just hoping that somebody would have helped that gosling. Then I realized the moral that how important is some one’s life and how loss of a life jeopardizes his/her entire family, like the other two goslings which could have been killed in the commotion that diverted the entire focus of their parents during that horrible moment. That day I decided, though I was not able to help that gosling but I could spread the message of the importance of life that might raise awareness and save few lives.
While I was returning home that evening I was wishing not to see a dead gosling at that spot on the road. Luckily I did not see one and hoping for the best, I reached home. But next day morning to my bad luck I had to see the same goose family crossing the road again from the opposite direction but this time there were only two goslings in the family. I did not want my logical or creative brain to function at that moment to understand what might have happened to the other gosling but I was happy at least for one thing; the family had decided to move on after the big loss and the other goslings were safe and reunited.
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