Murmur and Rustle.

[Seven Macaw's encounter with the Hero Twins, from a first-person perspective.]

He is lying stunned. Not moving, not breathing. He's not dead; he's just had his breath knocked out so hard his lungs can't start moving again.

He is staring up at the blue sky, blankly. The sky is so far away.

The leaves are drifting down on him.

There are only the soft murmurs and rustles of the forest, the rustle and murmur of leaves.

He is only a motionless object. But all of his senses are still working, both his human senses and his bird senses.

There are soft rustles in the grass.

The hunters are approaching. He senses them coming, with both his human senses and his bird senses. He smells their scents. They are very similar. Relatives. Brothers.

He still can't breathe. His lungs are so empty. He lies still, a wooden object.

All of his senses are warning him.

The hunters are coming closer. He sees feet and legs above him. One of the hunters pulls out a knife and lifts it to strike.

Suddenly, he springs up. Life and motion return to him. He is able to breathe again; he is whooping air desperately. He grabs the wrist of the man with the knife, holding it tightly, using the man's wrist to lever himself up from the ground.

The other hunter is approaching from the side. He throws out his foot and trips the man. The hunter goes rolling in the grass. Seven Macaw catches his breath, and laughs.

There are two of them, but he is not afraid.

He is immortal, after all.

The leaves are drifting down.



Authors Note: When I composed this scene, it was a cloudy morning. I looked out the window at my backyard; there was that eerie, hazy light, and the stillness, and the green of spring leaves.

This was one scene that I was able to compose in my head, word for word, and then type out verbatim at the computer.  There was that eerie feeling that I get sometimes when writing fiction, of actually being there.

It's 2012, folks, and weird shit is happening.

Crash.

[A stream-of-consciousness piece, written from the alternating viewpoints of Seven Macaw and an anonymous wooden dummy.]

he is sitting in the car seat
sitting there waiting for the car to start

The sky is clear, before him and beneath him;
There is only the blue, beneath and around him.

his hands don't reach the steering wheel
he wishes he could take the steering wheel
but his arms aren't made to move

Something hits him. He is hurled sideways
Before he knows what happened.

the car is starting

The blue sky is falling away from him,
Rushing away upward.

the car is accelerating
the force of motion pushes him back in the seat

It is happening too fast, he can't control his motion;
He flaps his wings, but he can't stop falling.

and it is happening too fast too fast
there is no way to hit the brakes
because his feet can't move

He is going to crash.

the car is going to crash

The ground rushes up against him from beneath
Like an earthquake;
Like a great tidal wave it strikes him from below,
The ground itself like a great hand striking a blow.

he is pitched forward into the windshield
his face goes into the windshield in a spiderweb of cracks
the car turns over

He is struck by the ground from beneath
With overwhelming force, unbearable pain..
He sees the sky rushing away upward,
He hears the wind rushing and roaring
Like a hurricane.

the car turns over rolling and burning
he can't move can't get out
the car is breaking apart

He is lying there broken.

he is lying there broken