Blackness O Thy Wings
Blackness O Thy Wings
Under the resounding lights and spectacles, there was always some gritty truths one is better off not knowing.
The city of Aves was sort of like that. A gringy character, a city crying, mourning over the condition of it's own destruction. I ponder the issue myself, coming to the astute conclusion that yes, a city can have a heart.
But when the filth and the shit boils up from the gutters, like clogged sewers on a rainy day, does that heart turn as dark as a black pearl?
The thing I question is why.
Why am I here, fighting to straighten out a place that brings no one joy nor comfort to anyone.
Why do I try, when those others have let the thugs take command of the streets.
Why do I dance to a song that is the very beat of this dying towns' heart.
The heart of Aves yet beats. Dusty and weak like ash, but it pounds nonetheless.
The pound of Aves' heart is Lysandora. I am the blood that keeps everything going.
And sometimes, I the raven, must make a few sacrifices to ensure that Aves stays my city, no matter what shit comes through.
Lysandora acknowledges that, my shady activities, as I hope she would. I would not expect less from such a competant owly lover.
I stick a smoke in my beak, lighting it and gusting a few puffs from my nares.
It's a nice club Lysandora works for-real classy for downtown.
The Pheonix, I think they call it, as I watch her take the stage and perform a neat jazzy song from an obscure goth music band named "Ego Likeness."
The song I remember is "Aviary", appropriate for an all-bird audience, as they clap for her with dusty flaps of wingtips together.
She is a sexy hooter with a good-sized pair of, well, um...hooters'. She wore a blue coctail dress with brown knit stockings. Her body feathers are white, tinged with a little gray. She wears a pair of diamond earrings pierced through her eartufts, ruby red gloss on that pert elegant beak. And eyes...damn how those eyes captivate!
"In come the vultures, through dusty air." She whispers.
I watch attentively, so do some thuggish looking macaws with the outlines of Tommy guns under leather coats. I make a note to pay attention to these assholes.
"To take you down, and tear the ribbons from your hair"
I order a drink with a toucan waitress; A shot of hard whiskey, as the macaws consult some diary or notebook, conversing amongst themselves.
"In come the songbirds, with bitter melodies."
"To sever all your heartstrings, as they light upon the trees."
A crow sits with the macaws, flashing them a picture from the folds of his coat, accidentally bearing the polished wood of a Thompson butt stock. I cannot see the picture, but it's obvious they're here to off someone.
"This place can sometimes be so ugly."
I crush my cigarette in an ash tray, lighting another to hide my nervousness, tapping the underside of the table with a taloned foot.
"This place can sometimes be so strange."
I see as they do not stare at anyone in particular. Who are they here to kill?
"In come the blackbirds, in murders and in droves."
I receive my drink, slipping the waitress a twenty, as I quaff it.
"To cover you in shadow as they clean you to the bone."
The macaws and crow make their move, flipping out automatic weapons. Aiming them at...
"In I come a firebird, don't offer up your sorrow."
Lysandora!
She stops, seeing the guns aimed at her.
Not today, gutter shit!
I lift my table and throw it at them, making them miss, bullets fired all around make the audience panic and scatter all about for exits, as the hoods get ready for a second try.
"Lysandora! Get down!" I scream, raising a sawed off shotgun from my own coat.
She focuses her large, deep eyes upon me. Eyes as deep and large as moon-lit pools, entrancing me briefly.
"If I stop, these bastards win."
"What-?!"
They start to shoot again, as I fire a blast from my pump-action Mossberg, killing the crow and fragging the others.
"Today you see me crash and burn, but I'll be back tomorrow!" She yells, lifting the hem of her dress, taking a small semi-auto pistol concealed in her stocking.
She takes aim, firing into the chest of one, makes the other three duck.
What a dame!
"This place can sometimes be so perfect."
She fires into a macaws' shoulder, as I pump again and kill another.
"This place can sometimes be your cage."
They flip over the table, poking their two Thompson's over to return fire with roaring stutters like keys being loudly tapped.
"This place can sometimes be so beautiful."
I rush them, picking up a dropped Tommy from a dead fellow hitter, turning the full blast on them in true St. Valentines massacre style.
"This place will always be so strange." She finished, putting her gun away.
Lysandora was truly the heart of the city, and when she died, it would fall to the perverse, the evil, the corrupt, the wicked.
Well, I was the blood. I was supposed to keep the waste from clogging up; from letting the city of Aves die.
I noticed me and Lysandora were the only ones left; until police arrived.
Until then,
"How about an encore?" I muse.
She bows deeply toward me, giving me a nice preview up her cleaveage, more than happy to sing that song again, that busty, gringy tune that sounds horrid at first, but towards the end bares the truth.
Under the resounding lights and spectacles, there was always some gritty truths one is better off not knowing.
But one truth worth knowing, as dictated by her recitement of the song, Aves can be perfect, a cage, beautiful, but no matter what, things are always strange-for better or worse.