Winner: Mr Featherking was taken / Oh the things we cannot change

Blackbird flew into the scene and rested.

Mr. Featherking was taken. They had taken him, those scrawny little fists somehow made bows and arrows, fashioned knots in rope they wove from trees, beaten into submission. They took him as he slept, head under fashioned-together wing, mismatched feathers - a blanket mosaic of black and brown.

“He moves,” the man said, hiding behind a rock, careful not to dust his driving suit, black jacket, white shirt, no tie.

“He does,” the other man said, same uniform, opened collar, squatting behind a tree so as not to soil his knees.

“It is done,” and the man dusted off his clean fingers, would have whistled if it wasn’t too ominous. Mr. Featherking’s eyelids fluttered and he stirred.

“Here here,” said Mr. Featherking as he awoke. “There there?” he asked, confused by his inability to move, confused by the heaviness in his wings. “Here there here!” he said to the men who peered from out their hiding spaces.

They had nailed pegs into the ground. They had tied Mr. Featherking to the pegs.
It was time to have their picnic.

Glorious waterproof feathers, strong legs, willing spirit. Mr Featherking had no idea he was meant to be a tent.

Blackbird told him it was his destiny, “Be still,” he chirped, resting on Mr.Featherking’s back, “be quiet, be good.”

Oh, the things we cannot change.

by Martha Tuff

Vaudeville Vera

            Seams split; my aging flesh bubbles to the surface.  Strange and crooked fingers fumble with pins and repairs, allowing tiny droplets of myself to escape.  I cover the battered and stripped feathers with voluptuous scarves, vibrantly coloured and skillfully adorned.  My bony limbs are still flexible enough to disguise all those missing sequins.
            There are 46 seconds exactly from when Billy exits the stage with his fire-eating torches and fuel cans and I saunter in to the theme of some discarded creature before me.  My body is pre-programmed to writhe, heaving and bumping on cue.  Patrons shuffle their worn shoes and fidget their dirty fingers and all the while my mind is free to wander, to play.  I think of the vastly dark heavens and their jewels, the stars. At what rate do they burn?  How slowly do they dissipate?  Do they fade at a regulated pace, gradually dimming until they die ceremoniously?  Or are they brighter than a million burning stage lights one second and then disappear completely into a forgotten tomb of blackness the next?  Jim turns the page and pounds away a ragtime melody.  Another song, another smile.  The grit embedded in the floor digs into my thigh, tearing microscopic holes.
            Funny thing about these shackles, I never noticed the day they became invisible and weightless.  Ownership transfers, confusion abounds, loyalties sway.  Once I was confined by thieving managers and endless contracts and limited means, now I find myself tethered by perishing audiences and extinct venues.

by Sabrina Stoessinger

Halfway to Eternity

Yes, I admit I did it. Who wouldn’t? Only a strong person, who I am absolutely not, could endure the stress.

The week was full of accidents and misfortunes. My first cousin’s teenaged daughter killed herself. She tossed her body under a truck. I got emails about deaths of two of my classmates:
stroke and cancer. I had a visit from the police: my ex-employer was arrested and they wanted me to make a statement. They were very pushy, but I said I would not. I lost my wallet with all my ID cards in the post office. To crown it all, my hubby dumped me.

After he moved out I got into a bathtub, had some whiskey and cut my veins under water. The moment I died I found myself in this shape. Every now and then employees from God’s office come and fix my ropes. To make my afterlife harder, they load me with heavy stuff. I am stuck between Heaven and Hell. Satan watches me from behind clouds. He is disguised as Angelum Lucis, but I can see his horns.

My dead niece came to me as a bird. She told me that she was forgiven. She thought that I also had a chance: they could release me on the fortieth day if someone on Earth prayed for me really hard. She also said that me having feathers was a good sign. I was meant to fly up. Horses, for example, were definitely not.

by Farida Samerkhanova

Tethers

I will not go wild-eyed into your fold. I hear you clamor and shout orders far below; you ululate victorious. In such ostentatious dress you tie me to the earth, to soil you doubtless claim as yours alone: you measure and demarcate and adjust for an acceptable margin of error, and think of me as property, something “won.”

But you cannot shut my eyes to light, to these vast expanses nothing can contain: see how they stretch before you, lands that abound and glory in your utter absence.

You calculate. Will I die here and now upon the plain, or live a life of burden by your whip? I stand here silent, your arguments fly back and forth below.

You will not see weariness or fear within my eyes. I will stand tall; I will wear you down, and down, until you put me in the earth. Your coins rattle, your paper notes change hands below me on the ground, while I face east; where across the grassland shines a rising sun.

by Sukhi Fitzpatrick