Day Seven: Seven Swans a-Swimming

Stephen woke to the sound of running water.

For one blissful second, he thought it was rain.

Then came the splash, the hiss, and the unmistakable honk of entitled aquatic royalty.

Jane’s voice drifted down the hallway, level but edged.

“Stephen. There are swans in the bath.”

He froze, halfway into his slippers. “That’s not possible. The geese are—”

“Containment has failed,” she said. “Again.”

Her tone carried the weary neutrality of someone announcing the weather after a tornado. She was standing at the bathroom door of their bungalow, dressing gown tied unevenly, coffee mug held like a defensive weapon. Steam curled past her shoulder. Inside, six geese bobbed in a ring of chaos around something larger, whiter, and dramatically more regal.

“Seven swans,” Jane said. “A-swimming. In my bath. Before you say anything: do you have anything to confess before I go back to bed and pretend none of this is real?”

Stephen leaned past her.

The bath—already battlefield terrain from previous avian tenants—had become a foaming lagoon. Seven vast swans glided through it like visiting demigods. Their wings brushed tile. Their reflections glimmered in the mirror with disdainful superiority.

“They’re beautiful,” Stephen offered.

“They’re enormous,” Jane countered.

“They’re a symbol of grace.”

“They’re a symbol of you not reading the fine print.”

One swan extended its neck and pecked the shower curtain. It tore clean in half with a noise that suggested satisfaction.

“Also,” Jane added, “aren’t swans the ones that can break your arm? No? Wonderful. Perfect.”

By midmorning, the swans had annexed the bath and half the hallway.

The geese—offended by the territorial incursion—relocated to the kitchen, where they launched a honking war so intense the fridge magnets trembled.

The French hens had retreated under the sofa, wearing identical expressions of European judgment. One poked its head out, saw a flapping wing, made an offended chirp, and immediately vanished again.

The partridge, perched uneasily on the curtain rail, emitted occasional squeaks but seemed to be saving itself for something dramatic.

Roo, ever professional, resumed her duties belly-up—consistency is a virtue. She lay in the middle of the chaos, paws aloft, supervising absolutely nothing.

Jane had retreated to the bedroom, laptop open, sketchbook beside her, and her notebook bristling with colour-coded tabs.

“I have a meeting with Little Briar Books in three hours,” she hissed as Stephen passed. “A real meeting. Actual distributors. They want to see my portfolio and the mock-up for The Hedgehog Who Couldn’t Nap.”

She gestured around them. “And all I have are swans.”

“Technically they’re very graceful—” he began.

A swan hissed behind him like a missile.

Jane pressed her palms to her forehead. “Stephen, this is the biggest opportunity I’ve had since the village Christmas market asked me to move my stall slightly left. I need quiet. I need to look like a functioning adult.”

She picked up her sketchbook in a reflex of creative self-soothing, flipped to a nearly finished spread of a shy hedgehog in a thicket, and then froze as a swan splashed an arc of bath-water over her page.

“Illustrating Waterfowl Apocalypse was never on my career plan,” she said through her teeth. “My hedgehog now has damp-induced ennui.”

Stephen winced—not just at the ruined art, but at the quiet fracture in her voice.

It lodged under his ribs like guilt with sharp corners.

He closed the bedroom door softly and braced himself.

There were moments—like this one—where he felt the consequences of his own optimism collecting behind him, heavy as the water swelling under the hallway rug.

And so, lacking wisdom or a better plan, he pursued the only strategy left: appease the swans.

The rest of the morning became an exercise in aquatic diplomacy.

The swans ignored bread, bribes, and logic. They accepted only admiration.

Stephen found himself whispering praise the way he used to placate impossible clients.

“Excellent posture… lovely feather symmetry…”

A swan hissed approvingly, as though granting him a limited two-hour contract of survival.

Soon the hallway resembled a Renaissance painting gone wrong: puddles, feathers, and a man attempting to negotiate peace with creatures who looked like they might unionise at any moment.

In the bathroom, the swans discovered the mirror and launched into a silent, furious dance with their own reflections.

The leader—a majestic brute with a scar on its beak—lunged at its twin, producing a thud that rattled the toothbrush holder.

Two others flapped grandly at their reflections as though choreographing a ballet titled Swan Lake: Hostile Takeover.

Jane emerged at last, clutching her sketchbook and tablet, face pale with dismay.

“Stephen, please tell me that sound wasn’t structural damage.”

He gestured helplessly at the mirror. “It’s… a period of intense self-reflection.”

“Of course it is.”

She rubbed her temple. “I’m supposed to show professional polish, not… amphibian chaos energy.”

“I’ll fix it,” he promised. “I’ll fix everything.”

“You always say that.” Her voice softened, but her shoulders carried the weight of someone running out of bandwidth.

“What happens when you can’t?”

He didn’t answer.

The swans answered—flapping their wings with thunderous, perfectly timed irony.

The plumber arrived at three, surveyed the carnage for half a minute, and declared, “Nope. That’s mythological.”

He left his card on the sideboard and departed at speed.

Stephen added it to the fridge collection, somewhere between the exterminator’s and the therapist’s.

When the water bill notification pinged his phone, he turned it face-down without looking.

In a moment of questionable brilliance, he fetched the inflatable paddling pool from the shed and set it up in the living room.

“Relocation,” he announced hopefully, gesturing like a project manager presenting a doomed solution.

The swans considered it.

Then, with regal resignation, stepped in one by one.

For three glorious seconds, it seemed like a win.

Then the pool began to leak.

The carpet darkened.

The partridge fainted dramatically from the curtain rail—finally spending all the panic it had saved.

Jane appeared again, coat on, keys clenched tight.

“I’m going out,” she said. “I need dry air and perspective. And a café that isn’t 90% feathers.”

“Should I come?”

A tiny pause.

She shook her head gently. “Fix it first.”

The door closed behind her with a softness far heavier than a slam.

Stephen stood alone in the middle of the bungalow, dripping, surrounded by swans who regarded him with serene omniscience.

For the first time since the madness began, he didn’t feel clever or romantic.

He felt small—like a man who’d built a shrine of good intentions and forgotten to leave room for oxygen.

He sank onto the soggy carpet.

The swans floated.

The geese muttered behind the kitchen door.

The hens whispered under the sofa like scandalised aunties.

Roo snored gently, paws still aloft.

Then, slowly, one swan drifted toward him and nudged his arm.

A deliberate, measured gesture.

Not affection—something stranger.

Something like: You’re an idiot, but we recognise the effort.

He touched its neck. Warm. Solid. Present.

“Alright,” he murmured. “Maybe not everything’s a disaster.”

Another swan joined.

Then another.

Soon he was encircled by white feathers and slow, steady breathing—an accidental meditation circle of disgruntled waterfowl.

Jane returned at dusk, cheeks pink from the cold, takeaway bag in hand.

She stopped in the doorway.

Her husband sat cross-legged in the wreckage, surrounded by swans.

Roo supervised from her back, of course.

“They’ve accepted me,” Stephen said quietly. “I think.”

Jane set down the food and crouched beside him.

“You’re insane,” she murmured. “But persistent.”

“I prefer ‘adaptable.’”

She nudged one swan with her toe. “Did you tell them they can break your arm? Seems to earn respect.”

He huffed a laugh.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Let’s eat before they change their minds.”

They ate noodles from cartons, surrounded by water and wings.

The partridge snored.

The geese muttered.

The hens whispered.

Outside, the streetlights flickered to life.

And in the living room—waterlogged, feather-strewn, and somehow still theirs—seven swans a-swimming turned the wreckage of their life into something almost, almost beautiful.