Slovak Literature in English Translation

A breeze. A gentle wind. Leaves quiver gently, smoke hints at the wind direction. Slight waves, generating no foam.

I like plastic flamingos. It may seem bizarre, but I find the cult of garden gnomes, prevalent in the US in the 1950s, fun. Had it emerged a few years earlier, Humbert Humbert might have enjoyed seeing them in Charlotte Haze’s garden.  A pair of them, as they used to be sold at the time. The plastic flamingos, now available in solar, Christmas and Halloween versions. There must be more plastic flamingos around these days than living ones:  the pink plastic flamingo is the official symbol of Madison, Wisconsin, the icon of trash.

When it comes to plastic flamingos I would probably opt for the original kitsch version, which now seems quite understated.

However, the flamingos in our zoo weren’t pink, there was no pink mass of thousands of flamingos contrasting with the blue surface of water and the sky. The colour of their wings was contrasting, black on the inside, as were their two-coloured beaks, as if they just happened to discover they had dipped them into tar in their enclosure.

Sorry, guys, you’re not taking off again, we’ve clipped your wings.

Except that the beaks of flamingos in the wild are the same. They use them to daub their feathers with oil. They do this all together, at the same time. Apparently, when they are looking for a mate, they synchronize their movements to show they are attuned to one another but that wasn’t on display at the zoo either.

Though flamingos are generally monogamous, they are also known to practice polygamy, not just in the form of polygyny but also polyandry.  Sometimes they live in a threesome or even a foursome. We know how polygynous creatures live from the example of humans and poultry. One of the female flamingos is the dominant one and the other accepts this until such time as both females lay an egg, when they start fighting to eliminate each other. In the case of polyandry, we might imagine a couple which lets a second male, someone both partners respect – let’s call him Mr Flamingo – join their family unit. Mr Flamingo takes on all the chores relating to food and childcare, including keeping the egg warm. Mr Flamingo becomes a servant, and this doesn’t change even should the family expand to four.

However, life as a foursome can take a variety of forms.

If the dominant male flamingo has two female partners, he doesn’t share them with the second male who remains the domestic servant taking care of all of them, otherwise the cohabitation of two couples would be pointless. Who knows whether there are also flamingos living in constellations of four that comprise a single female and three males and whether, in this scenario, the original couple has two servants and if those two males fight for the privilege to hatch the chick, or whether the hierarchy of dominance is observed by the two additional males. What respective roles are assigned to the last male in the pecking order and the one before him? I couldn’t find any information on that. Perhaps it has never been observed.

But perhaps none of this is true; in fact, I’m not sure I haven’t made it all up as I forget where I first came across this piece of information.

But why would I invent such a thing?

What if we accepted a third person, a male, into our family? We’d probably find some use for him, perhaps B and I would have more children. Mr Flamingo would provide a third income, act as the third parent and organiser of family holidays, an additional companion, freeing up time for B and me. Would we be exploiting Mr Flamingo? Would he feel exploited, even if he were not? Or perhaps Mr Flamingo might be a work-focused person, cohabiting with another couple as a fully-fledged family member:  that is a scenario I can envisage. He might also be migratory, arriving on a seasonal basis.

Let’s imagine what it would be like to cook dinner with Mr Flamingo. It would be a cross between an advert for ready-made food and an episode of Friends, which means that I can’t actually imagine it. B and I always do the cooking separately. Like a punishment.

What about sex? Would we lead a polyamorous life or would he be a sexual partner solely for me? Or maybe solely my husband’s sexual partner? What would his relationship to our daughter be? And hers to him? Would she regard him as her uncle, a carer, an older brother? Would he pose a threat to her at a certain age?

Maybe not all women and men are designed to form dominant pairs and those who never get to that stage are condemned to remain lonely, to swap and alternate partners in perpetuity. Perhaps Mr Flamingo might be someone who is just not ready to commit and start his own family even   though he might be quite happy to share one with others.