With feathers lava-bright the phoenix dominated the sky. Though she was barely larger than an eagle, her effect was dragon-esque. This creature, swooping above the New York skyline was a thing of legend. She was as real as Bat-Man or Wonder Woman, as real as the Hogwarts Express… Yet she was there for all to see, beneath the storm clouds that billowed grey, she was every sunrise and sunset rolled into one.
The fear that was once the clouds, the fear that had spent so long as fog, condensed into a concrete pathway. No more crouching, no more running without the blessing of seeing even a foot ahead. To spin, to see the three-sixty is breathtaking. The gall. The shameless gall of it all. Yet now all there is to do is walk with casual ambiance. Stroll. Glide. Welcome the morrow with a hero's eyes.
The water dragon flowed in the water with the grace of a kelp forest. Her fins were long green-blue ribbons in the currents. Coral reef fish were flowers to her heart and soul, as were the vivid coral reefs. She lived for those places, for the community with both seals and sharks. She bathed in the aroma of the life they gave. Thus, when the bleaching began, when her beloved home became a white carpet of skeletons, she was bereft. That, legend has it, is when the trouble began.
To the grim unflinching light that seared the unguarded retinas, came a form of shadow’s breath that brought the stank of rotten fish. Of form, it had none. Of eyes and mouth, it had none. Yet this beast grabbed and consumed all things as if it were both black-hole and tornado in one. Upon the sweat-slickened tile floor, I slipped. Clunk. Gasp. Heart racing. With neither footsteps nor sound, it neared. Only its stench intensified with proximity. Eyes on the door I locked into a sprinters pose - now or never, live or die, this was it. Go.
In the car headlamps the blizzard became a chaotic constellation. Through the all-squared forest of high-rises, along the wide avenues, the wind sang winter’s song. The air had grown teeth that day and nibbled those brave enough to venture the streets. Perhaps on summer days this place is heady with the aroma of street food, yet now it is only the mixture of ice and gasoline. Ted re-wrapped his scarf around his neck, tugged his hat to almost cover his eyes, and trudged toward the cafe.
Black clouds cracked to birth a water-forest, a million trucks insta-grown as the finest of coppice-twigs. The echoes of gunshot-thunder, the electric forks, muted to an other-worldly serenade. Through them I wandered as a ghost, immune to the mundane rules of matter and yet feeling every snap of winter's fangs.