The Clumsy Flamingo

There was once an aviary in the zoo that was filled with parrots, parakeets and doves. As they floated and sang above peacocks and peahens dragged their shimmery cobalt and green tails along the ground.

Across the lawn and through the windows stood a flamingo. Alone in it’s kind, disconnected from the other birds, awkwardly tall with knobbly knees. The pigeons that sat on lions’ heads at the entrance of the zoo would cackle and laugh at each glance of the steps the flamingos wobbled through. The morning doves would coo with sympathy at the hardly noticeable height the flamingos would jump to with wings aimlessly flapping. All in all they were a mocked bunch of birds and so unsurprisingly most of the flamingos were distant, shamed and very unconfident.

Except for one.

There was one overly pink and preppy flamingo that, though most likely the klutziest that ever lived, was happy and confident. She ignored the stares of the pigeons and the pity of the doves; She delighted in the peacocks’ tails and always offered her compliments.

One morning a fellow flamingo stopped by the rock she was standing on and gazing up with a black beaked grimace asked,

“Why do you bother being nice to the other winged ones when they’ve never bothered being nice to us? Don’t you realize they think you’re ugly compared to them and clumsy and disgraceful?”

“I’m not ugly compared to them,” she said defensively. “Marv, I’m just a different kind of beauty. And I’m not disgraceful, I elegantly kind. And I’m not clum- oh. Okay, so I am clumsy but that’s not too bad. There are worst things to be.”

“Such as … ?” Marv rolled his eyes.

“Such as overly- sensitive, divided and rude. Perhaps too self-conscious to admire the beauty of those around me, or too bitter to let the sunshine be the thing I am most grateful for. Comparison is the thief of joy, they say.”

Marv sulked off towards the flock, dragging his large webbed feet through the mud, contemplating and simultaneously pouting.

But the clumsy flamingo paid him no mind, and turned to squawk her daily greeting to the peahens through the window, across the yard.

“Good morning beautiful friends! Isn’t it lovely today?”

“Of course it is.” They muttered back, “Of course it is for you.” They continued on with their grooming and grumbling, ignoring the observant stares of their flamingo “friend”.

The clumsy flamingo sighed and turned to step off her boulder, slipping and falling into the wade around her.

Yet, with a chuckle, she shook off the droplets of green water and stood back up, continuing her odd little strut back to the flock.

Eventually Marv would join her on the rock she claimed each sunrise. Because her view of the world, small and caged as it had been, was forever filled with a wonder she longed to share; that she loved to share.