Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise


Death had come shrouded in the soft light of the setting sun almost gone from the sky. Death had come silently, over limp winter leaves, past swelling spring buds. Death had come from behind. He never saw it coming.

The day had been hard, wearing him to the bone. Murderous competition, lots and lots, and it just wouldn't let up. But in the end, he had bested them all. He had made his move, and now he was on top of the list. Head honcho. Yeah. Stressing for that all day, he had hardly found time to eat anything, and now he was starving, trying to ignore the feeling of stone chippings grinding together in his empty stomach. Soon, soon... just a dash, go and grab some chow. Yeah. Head honcho. Food.

With his guard down, it had been so easy for his adversary. Before he even knew, his instincts kicked in as the shadow of the beast fell over him, making his wings unfold while his long legs propelled him forward in a mad dash... but too slowly. Too late; too fragile his body, not built to resist, his bones crushing like matchsticks under the assault. Maimed and torn. His back, his breast, the left wing... holes punched through his side, lung losing pressure as the air whistled out of an array of wounds in his chest.
In the end, it was ineptitude that set him free... sheer clumsiness of a being that had never needed to rely on its hunting skills to survive, man-made food satisfying the needs of its body... but not the cravings of its mind. The lust to hunt... to kill.

The cat had left... but death had followed him to his refuge in the sallow thorn bush, climbed along with him from branch to branch, upwards, upwards, ever refusing to let go, to fall off of him, down to the ground like so many drops of blood. Death lingered on, had made a pact with the spores now trickling from their hiding places in-between his soft plumage into the open fractures, infiltrating his body where he could not fight them: in the cavities of his hollow bones. No, death would not leave. He would. But he did not know, would never know, could only feel. The haze, the confusion, the buzz of adrenaline pumping in his veins, making his mind plunge back to the rush of the competition, the mad race for that which meant everything.
In the silence of the night, he sang his battle song.