A THEORY OF FLIGHT
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I am moved by fancies that are curled
Preludes, IV - T.S. Eliot
Birds were beautiful, weren't they? Sleek, smooth-winged creatures with
white feathers and sweet voices. Not awkward, indignant bundles of grey
fluff that squawked their protest. After all, Morlock legend spoke of great,
white owls who carried dreams in their beaks to good children; who sailed
noiselessly through the air on wings of wind. This bird could not carry
dreams in its gaping maw without swallowing them, could it? Suspiciously,
Marrow regarded the tiny creature that she held cupped in the palm of her
hand. Its wings were stunted - sprouting tiny, sharp quills - and its face
was only beak and too-large eyes.
"What does she have down there?" she heard Storm ask from the top of the
staircase.
"A baby bird," Wolverine replied, a sneer in his voice, "Probably going to
eat it . . . . Little freak lives for blood."
Her face grim and still, Marrow removed a shoebox from a corner of the
basement. Her Treasure Chest. Tipping the contents out, she rummaged through
the pile of plastic beads and magazine clippings. A sharp knife gleamed
wickedly, wrapped in some, shimmering cloth, and she grinned in triumph.
Her
eyes went back to the frail, cheeping hatchling in her left hand. Careful
not to tear the thin silk, she unwrapped the handkerchief from around the
blade, and put it to one side.
"Ain't that a bit unfair, Logan?" Cannonball sounded angry, and Marrow
paused. He was so clean, so polite, so fair. So slow to judge. So quick to
forgive.
"Not in the least, kid. I've faced her, remember? Her type only knows
killing."
Tears pricked her eyes, shining like tempered steel, as she wrapped the bird
in the handkerchief and placed him in the shoebox. Logan was wrong - 'her
type', the Morlocks, had been patient, despite their suffering, and gentle,
despite all that had been done to them. She had failed them; stained their
legacy of peace with blood.
She looked down at the bird, remembering finding it cheeping and helpless on
the ground beneath a tree. Hearing the laughter of boys as they ran away,
tossing the empty nest behind them. A few feathers had still clung to the
straw, white as the misty mare's tails that had drifted in the sky. She had
been angry, and had considered chasing the boys, pinning them down and
dissecting them until she found some goodness in a loop of intestine or
chamber of a heart. The bird had squawked, however, and she had turned to
it, sensing that it was there that she was needed.
"You need a name," she told the nestling, as it chirruped up at her, "I'll
call you Cloud, because, no matter how close to the sun you go, you'll
always have the memory of darkness inside you. Like me."
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Disclaimer: All characters belong solely to Marvel and are not used to make
me a profit.The tiny bird belongs to Marrow. I belong to too many
mailinglists. :) However, I'm never too busy to hear your comments at
brucepat@iafrica.com. This story fits into two challenges - Em's allegory
challenge, and JB's Warm and Fuzzy Challenge.
Back to the living room
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by RogueStar
For JB's baby-bird, Loiosh. :)
around these images and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
infinitely suffering thing.