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I'm hanging on the green man's cross here with clouds like blood seeping across the sky and inside blood like waves pounding pounding pounding...
Crucified here on this oak with my own invisible rainbow feathers, I greet the dawn with an orison of pain. Kind and gentle dawn, shooting her warm red arrows into me.
I didn't want to die. But I surely would if I couldn't get off this cross before the morning sun cleared the horizon.
I don't want to die I don't want to die someone please take me down take me down TAKE ME DOWN.
I writhed in the pink light.
The storm had passed. HE had gone. Birds were singing the advent of the new day. A mist rose from the steaming, wet ground. Everything had been washed clean.
Oh God, give me another chance I don't want to end it here on the cross-beams of the mighty oak...
With panic in my mouth like coppery blood and the sun caressing me like a warm hand I considered calling out to God, to the Devil, to the green man, to the Blessed Virgin, to Diane, to Gaia...
Save me save me save me
But the trouble is God never answers my call and loving Lucifer always does...
I was familiar with the discipline of God's Kingdom and with the tenderness of Lucifer's Hell.
I stretched my arms and felt the shaft of my feathers grind against sinew and broken bone. Shocking pain burned me like a blast from a furnace, scorching down my arms to the pit of my heaving stomach and blasting out my toes down to the root of the lone oak tree and the moist prairie mud...
The sun smiled on me.
No one was coming.
I closed my eyes against the light and breathed deeply. Tried to hold still. Concentrated on making myself a light burden. I imagined myself only resting on the cross, not hanging...
No one was coming. NO ONE WAS COMING.
PleaseGodJesusMaryandJosephGreenManDianeMaidenandMotherand CroneSaintsandAngelsSpiritsandDemonsPLEASE
No one was going to take me down.
I nearly broke, then.
But I set my jaw against the pain. Against the light. Against this goddamn cross. Abandoned me, had they? Leave me hanging here, would they?
Well that's just fucking GREAT.
I would not die here. I would NOT.
HE will not triumph. Blood-drinker. Life-stealer. The storm-bringer would not have his way.
My body would not betray me. My own feathers would not destroy me. They could not. Would not. I will not allow it.
I am stronger than all these.
Yield to me, yield to me I mouthed to my feathers.
The sun smiled more broadly. The light was strong.
But I was stronger.
I wriggled my left wrist, the unbroken one. I felt the sturdy shaft of my feather, felt the soft downy edge of fuzz. Gritting my teeth I pushed my arm forward slightly.
And it...tickled.
My lips twisted into a parody of a grin. I pressed forward harder.
Yield to me, Yield to me, I thought. I am stronger than all these.
As my wrist slipped forward the feather tick-tick-tickled my sinews, my bone, my slick muscles. And I laughed.
With each ghastly chuckle, my wrist shucked forward faster. With each jerk forward it tick-tick-tickled more and more until I was barking and coughing and crying with Death's potent laughter.
The sun was grinning with me, now.
Until finally, with a sharp cry that burst something in my throat my left wrist slid free of the feather.
I immediately fell and swung to and fro from the broken wrist still pinned to the oak.
Blood from the unexpected laughter filled my throat and strengthened me. I swallowed quickly once, twice, three times.
The dawnslight was turning bloody, now. The sun was halfway up.
Birds sang. Mud steamed. Leaves breathed.
I swung back and forth on the mighty oak with my own blood in my mouth biting my tongue from the new pain not a light burden now but a heavy pendulum swinging from the green man's cross sweet jesus what a sight!
tick tock tick tock
More blood more blood now from my chewed tongue made me stronger stronger than all these I am stronger than all these but oh my what a sight I must be swinging free in the morning light left and right and angel and a vampyre.
I began to wheeze with laughter, spraying blood and saliva, imagining myself as some kind of pendulum. Tick tock tick tock. Have you ever seen such a sight in your life?
Unable to stop the slow trickle of life. Unable to stop the rising sun. Unable to stop swinging back and forth an angel and a vampyre and angel and a vampyre...
I was not a light burden I was heavy I was strong and my own feather would yield to me yes it would yes it would oh my what a sight!
Angel dying in the dawn's bright light!
And sure enough, as the sun rose I slipped down. Broken bones grating against the feather. The shaft bending with my weight. The feather tick-tick-tickling me off again a ridiculous sight an angel and a vampyre a pendulum tick-tick-ticking the time away till Death came.
I am a metronome for the dawn's song. Tick tick tick...the robin cocked his shining eye and said: time to get up, you sleepyhead!
The sun was scorching now, no longer friendly. No longer smiling on me but bearing down with the full force of a new day.
I was strong and I was heavy and I SCREAMED with laughter as I dropped off the cross with a thump.
JesusMaryandJoseph I'll do it myself!
I'm stronger than all these.
The sun was now just moments and inches from its full strength. I scrambled up hastily feeling my skin starting to blister.
The morning mist was burning off and the birds chirped merrily, happy with the storm's leavings of worms...
No time. There was no time to get to my house. No time to hide under my bed. Day was almost here.
With a strength borne of Death's own humor and despair I scuttled underneath my porch.
The sun was burning me fiercely. I felt the skin on my naked back crack and split.
Then, just as I rolled into the cool welcoming darkness I spotted a bird and LUNGED for it.
Little robin redbreast to feed my hunger, to quench my burning thirst and emptiness. I stuffed him in my mouth and sucked hard.
With feathers stuck to my lips I curled like a beast in a den. I was safe here. I would sleep. I would rest. The robin's song is my lullaby.
Nothing could harm me now.
Strong and heavy, I slept.
copyright 1995 by Julieann M. Brown-Micko
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