SQUATTERS AND OWNERS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1t8ukHrmaI&list=PPSV&t=88s

I watched, with mounting empathy, an outdoor drama where a gorgeous, sensuous Egyptian goose was confronted, beak and nail, by an irate family of royal storks. The intensity of the argument was such that I began to shake in my seat, my skin shifting colors like the tumescent, black-violet caruncles of an over-excited turkey. A cold perspiration followed. At first, as is often the case, I understood nothing—until a divine light hit my vortex.
The Principal has His ways. Far from being a mere witness to a boring, perennial conflict between Squatters and Landlords, I was blessed to assist in a clash equal to the Seven Against Thebes. Here were the antagonists—Oedipus’s sons, Eteocles and Polynices—both innocent and guilty, yet both driving toward a “final solution.” This kind of plot, bearing the stroke of genius, is a touchstone for sensitive souls who indulge in ethical matters.
Let us observe the facts without taking sides. On the raised edge of a particularly wide and clumsy stork’s nest, a dandy Egyptian goose lands. She casts a deprecatory glance at the rotten bottom of the den, where a bunch of eggs lie in disorder. She settles upon them, though she fails to cover them entirely. “Aha,” I thought, “another case of compulsive motherhood and adoption—an avian Angelina Jolie?”
But before I could smile at my own wit, the landlord arrived: long red legs, a sharp red beak—an elegant royal stork of the highest order. Would there be blood? No. The characters kept their distance and avoided eye contact, affecting ignorance of the other’s presence. Then, tentatively, the mighty bullfrog-eater extended its interminable neck and dagger-like beak toward the poor lady, who was protected only by her maternal composure.
It was a grave mistake. The outraged broody dashed forward with a furry-like fury (so they were her eggs after all?) toward the “royal,” who flew away in shame. I was on the point of shouting my admiration when the “rough neck” returned, accompanied by his partner and their adult brats. Cowardly, the whole gang launched a repetitive attack on the brave single mother until they succeeded in expelling her from the site.
It happened as it does in real life. I was pondering my exit from such a sad scene when the villainous victors broke into the most beautiful breakdance-cum-music imaginable. It seems, after all, that art has nothing to do with morality or correctness—though we should perhaps keep that low-key.
While I began to ruminate on my own “fossil thinking,” the goose flew back, accompanied by an alpha male gander. His mere presence was enough to scare the “gang of four” into abandoning their own nest in haste and forever. Finally, I identified the source of the sly Greek playwright’s inspiration: Nature is the mother of wisdom and the true source of the deadly challenge.