Beating the Wings

Ron Koppelberger

Beating the Wings

Lucky found the world in a tin can and a calm eye for the ladies. Divine construction he thought she is divine. Lucky ran his hand through the length of his silver stained hair as he tugged at the clothespin in his third knuckle. The secret to the universe he thought, she could hold the secret to great ecstasies and long days of passionate shadow. Glass Darkly turned her silhouetted eyes toward Lucky and screeched, “Caw, Caw!”. The rest of the Rainshower bar ignored her but lucky stared in fascination as she spit out a gob of what looked like jelly. Lucky rubbed the palm of his hand across his torn leather pants and sighed, “If only.” he said aloud.
Gaunt horizons and the diligent desire of fate filled luckiest mind with the promise of wedded perfection and children wrought by the winds of a perfect communion, he had twilight in his orange colored eyes speckled by fire and black flecks of midnight hue…contact lenses reflecting the silent rage and the mad wont of a thousand spent dreams, she had to be the one.
Amongst the castaway beer cans and food wrappers littering the floor of the Rainshower was a plastic rose, perhaps it had fallen there from the chateau of a passing princess or maybe just the arrangement adorning the maze of booths in the rain shower, he didn’t care, it was there for him…and her.
Lucky picked the plastic rose off of the floor and smelled it with wonder in his eyes as Glass cooed to the ceiling, “Caw, Caw!” She sang in gentle rhythms to the evening perch and the promise of a new day. Glass smeared her red lipstick in a blurry line across her chin as she looked at Lucky. “Caw, Caw!” she whispered to the empty space between them. Her perfume wrapped around his head and filled his senses with the need of a thousand dreams, she was his call, his swaying daisy in night-tide hearts and sweet drinks of molasses tea.
Seeking the shelter of luckies arms Glass moved closer to him and embraced him gently around the neck, clasping her hands behind him and pulling him close. “Caw, caw she sang as her yellow eyes and painted fingernails found purchase. “Caw, Caw,” she sang quietly into his ear as he shook with a myriad of desires in anticipating asylums of yesterday, today and the moment, the moment given wings of passion by strange acquaintance and wild array by broken shards of love and the whisper of a legend, borne of fire and sparks in the blood of what has the reverent purpose of fate. She wrapped her long moccasined legs around his ankles and the chain around her waist jangled in tune to their embrace. It was, she was more than he could have hoped for, she was perfection. “Caw, Caw!” she said again as the magic of a gray static turned her to the wind and the black wings of a sacred raven. She changed before his eyes and he held her there in cool airs of appreciation as he discovered her and her dancing light. She opened her beak in his lap and sang one last time before flying toward the open door of the Rainshower, “Caw, Caw!” In an instant she was gone and he left feeling touched and fulfilled by the wont of a grand gasp.
Later as he sat there staring at nothing he would realize the impossible, the perfect fantasy gone by the freedom of grand design. She had been all blood and roses, all blood and roses.