Their
celestial ancestors watched over them from afar, and decided it was
time for revenge.
They
had seen it all happen, over so many years. The succulent poisoned
bait sat atop a favourite post; the hail of lead shot during a stoop
for a partridge; gin traps and snares in pleasant woodland stretches,
the destruction of nests and eggs and the general ruination of
habitat.
The
elders were not happy, and decided steps must be taken to deal with
the upstart bipeds. Else harrier and hawk, falcon and eagle, would
all cease to be.
So they
worked in their laboratories, and secret research bases of
construction far beyond the comprehension of man, and eventually sent
the fruits of their labours across the darkness of space to the
Earth, so a lesson might be taught.
One day
they arrived, and set a course for the grouse moors of England, one
bright and breezy day in Spring. Opal eyes aglint, they screamed out
of the son, titanium winds screaming in the slipstream of their
vertical stoop. Rainbow feathers were cunningly fashioned from
bismuth, and in a deliberate irony the elders had formulated after
seeing a documentary about the gulf war, their talons were made of
depleted uranium with diamond tips.
Iridium
backs provided power via the photoelectric effect of Einstein, and
shone blister bright in the sun as they dived upon the gamekeeper
setting DDT soaked pheasants on the fenceposts. Claws sank deep and
irradiatingly into waxed jacket shoulders and effortlessly - despite
these birds being no bigger than their native inspirations – took
them into the eyries not to be fed off, but merely pulled apart
slowly.
The
metal raptors had arrived.
They
flung themselves out of the solar glare upon the landowner, the man
taking £120 a time for a brace of pheasant and willing to
persecute for the profit. Iron hen harriers, silver goshawks and
buzzards cast of bronze descended upon the landsman as he stepped
from his Range Rover, and plucked out eyeballs with futuristic
precision. Razer sharp kestrel wing edges decapitated the farmer who
poisoned his land with chemicals, all caught on camera for the
designers back home, and also broadcast to humans on railway stations
and shared media everywhere. A warning.
It went
on for several days...all those concerned with the decimation of
species were taken from their homes and the land they owned, and
killed with great consideration for spectacle and impact. No part of
the countryside was short of ravaged but rich corpses, and the urban
cityscapes of town planners and pigeon racers got their fair share of
deathly visitation too.
And
when it was over, the metal raptors with their jewelled and
all-encompassing gaze did not go back to their alien home, but took
station upon the tall buildings, churches and treetops, to remind man
that they had not gone away, and their beaks would drip with blood
again, should any foolhardy persecution of their feathered cousins
resume.
Copyright Bloody Mulberry 19.01.14
No comments:
Post a Comment