12-30-2015, 11:36 AM
But I won't rot, I won't rot. Not this mind and not this heart.
For a long time, it seemed almost as if the sky was some preservation chamber — kept supple and fit beyond his years. And so every time they met he was only a little unlike the last incarnation of himself; perhaps more grey around the nostrils, maybe more stiff in the waking hours. He had been stilled in time, as he had been slowed in life. Quiet isolation, the pump of wings, these things became the nourishment of his hours. The slow bleed of light into dark, but even that was a poor tell of time. Not of the change of days, but of the sheer magnitude of time, always passing. Each breath drawn was worth a thousand in the suspended animation. When in flight he was so alike a demigod, an inferior offering, but nonetheless bettered in the make of his iron muscles and singular mind. Something approaching immortal — but soil is humbling. Hard, homely earth, where time catches up just as surely as the day and night, and so do his shades.
He knows life amoungst shadows. He must. Where they are absent high above, making the clouds all the more alluring, they populate the atmosphere here as thick as fog. They attach to him like vampires, pulling from his body the vigor, so otherwise indomitable. So he stays and waits for her like a fanatic. Desperate, because she is revitalization, mending him of the wounds caused by their own madness, and making him strong again. Ready to lift off. It is written in the incomprehensibly fickle and cruel directions of their shared devotion that to make it too sickly sweet, they must meet if only for the strength to part. They are cursed to walk away, fed for another decade. Sustained on the meat and spirits of memory — memory of touch, memory of scent — and of anguish.
Because as sure as sorrow can cause ruination, so can it remind the body and mind that there is something there, waiting, in the pain. And pain becomes life.
But in that crucible, sometimes the exoskeleton that grows around becomes over fortified. Too hard. It necessities a suit of armor, some protection from the slings of artillery (even so very high up); but he has built a citadel. A great yawning fortress to protect with ferocity any tenderness left inside. At times it has made him distant. Not just in altitude, but in the subversion of himself — he has not always been proud, but he has never been cruel. He has shed his sadness and donned apathy; he has sampled from the cups of things that might free his mind. It was never meant to be successful, in the end he conceded to the air as the only thing there was to occupy his restless, mortal hours.
But they are growing long in the tooth.
When the wintry air marks with a familiar scent (a faraway type of familiar) he takes it only as a phantom. A detached piece of something long transpired, still wandering this place as aimless as them. This is not the first time he has caught a whiff or a glance, so convinced of its veracity he might nicker to it. Hoping for a reply, but met with silence. He drops his great wing and turns his head all the same, because he has been stung time and time again, but continues to grab for everything recklessly. It is all they have left to do — to avoid and to quell hope; to hope, naked and vulnerable. She is not as she was, but she never would be. Nor is he, the change is just more subtle. The slow cessation of his functions is coming just as inevitably. She is not as she was, but she doesn't need to be. Swayback and silver be damned, he recognizes her at once. Who else can it possibly be? This is too on time, and in their strange way, it makes too much sense.
He pulls in a sharp inhale of cold air, choking a bit on the harshness of it. Like a man walking to the executioner's slab, he is both ready and apprehensive. She might reveal herself a projection of the stars and slip away back into the dark sky, staying their reunion. He can only handle so much. She does not look at him right away, but he understands better than anyone. “How does all this end do you think, Clock?” His voice is a low grumble, broken by gallows humour and despair, because they cannot flirt with the end for much longer. He reaches out to the arch of her neck, searching for the warmth and smell. That gift of hers to him.
He knows life amoungst shadows. He must. Where they are absent high above, making the clouds all the more alluring, they populate the atmosphere here as thick as fog. They attach to him like vampires, pulling from his body the vigor, so otherwise indomitable. So he stays and waits for her like a fanatic. Desperate, because she is revitalization, mending him of the wounds caused by their own madness, and making him strong again. Ready to lift off. It is written in the incomprehensibly fickle and cruel directions of their shared devotion that to make it too sickly sweet, they must meet if only for the strength to part. They are cursed to walk away, fed for another decade. Sustained on the meat and spirits of memory — memory of touch, memory of scent — and of anguish.
Because as sure as sorrow can cause ruination, so can it remind the body and mind that there is something there, waiting, in the pain. And pain becomes life.
But in that crucible, sometimes the exoskeleton that grows around becomes over fortified. Too hard. It necessities a suit of armor, some protection from the slings of artillery (even so very high up); but he has built a citadel. A great yawning fortress to protect with ferocity any tenderness left inside. At times it has made him distant. Not just in altitude, but in the subversion of himself — he has not always been proud, but he has never been cruel. He has shed his sadness and donned apathy; he has sampled from the cups of things that might free his mind. It was never meant to be successful, in the end he conceded to the air as the only thing there was to occupy his restless, mortal hours.
But they are growing long in the tooth.
When the wintry air marks with a familiar scent (a faraway type of familiar) he takes it only as a phantom. A detached piece of something long transpired, still wandering this place as aimless as them. This is not the first time he has caught a whiff or a glance, so convinced of its veracity he might nicker to it. Hoping for a reply, but met with silence. He drops his great wing and turns his head all the same, because he has been stung time and time again, but continues to grab for everything recklessly. It is all they have left to do — to avoid and to quell hope; to hope, naked and vulnerable. She is not as she was, but she never would be. Nor is he, the change is just more subtle. The slow cessation of his functions is coming just as inevitably. She is not as she was, but she doesn't need to be. Swayback and silver be damned, he recognizes her at once. Who else can it possibly be? This is too on time, and in their strange way, it makes too much sense.
He pulls in a sharp inhale of cold air, choking a bit on the harshness of it. Like a man walking to the executioner's slab, he is both ready and apprehensive. She might reveal herself a projection of the stars and slip away back into the dark sky, staying their reunion. He can only handle so much. She does not look at him right away, but he understands better than anyone. “How does all this end do you think, Clock?” His voice is a low grumble, broken by gallows humour and despair, because they cannot flirt with the end for much longer. He reaches out to the arch of her neck, searching for the warmth and smell. That gift of hers to him.
I won't rot.