~
Silvery flakes drift down, glittering in the bright light of the harvest moon. The blackbird with a single ruddy feather is circling his iron rooster friend atop my tiny cabin's roof. He gawks at me from one glinting yellow eye, pointing downwards through the snowy static. As I stand, stripped of my shirt and sweats, TV remote in hand, I can hear him mocking me.
The television streams out voices from the living room and my mind wanders to my father, how he had taken scissors to the antenna cable as my mother walked out the door. Then to the family rust bucket parked in the driveway, a bright yellow hose attached to the tail pipe.
A storm of rage piles into my chest, a million tiny people crowded between my ribs, exhaling clouds of ashes. The TV remote utters a muted crack under the pressure of my fist. The blackbird sneers. I am inclined to name his Azrael, an angel of death. I feel as if the remote I clutch could knock him out of the sky, take him from the moon he cannot reach. I image it slamming into his impish figure, his ruddy feather flailing through the snow, his head hitting the frozen ground with a thud. Then the iron rooster squeals above me, metal on metal, and I change my mind.
I trifle onto the landing, not bothering to shut the door behind me and turn to the silver-framed photo at my left. It sits alone on a lacking counter top, buried beneath pale, creamy lights. It is a smiling portrait of a slight, beautiful woman, turned toward the camera with black and white eyes. Gently lifting the frame to me, I watch as she smiles and gives a playful baring of her teeth. I give a tiny smile back, poking her cheek childishly and setting her frame back on the counter.
The cabin shudders. I amble into the living room where the weather man points his stubby finger at a white-blue wraith-like figure approaching the groves outside my cabin. I stand frozen, staring aimlessly at the television. It is several moments before I notice Azrael in the corner of my eye. His is standing on the coffee table, perched haphazardly against another steely picture of the young woman in the silver frame. His shovel beak opens.
"You're still in your skivvies, there, mate," he says, turning one goldenrod eye in my direction. Azrael ruffles his feathers and turns ninety degree on clicking feet. "And you left the door open, too."
His accent is thickly Australian. The single ruddy feather on his right wing flickers in the lamplight. He looks strangely like my father. I feel the weight of the TV remote, still clasped in my hand. My fingers twitch.
"I know what you're thinking, and it's not a very good idea," the bird reports, humoring himself with the preening of his carmine feather. He ignores the rumbling that climbs from my throat.
I watched with distended eyes as a tiny yellow hose sprouts from Azrael's tail. It crawls along the coffee table and up his wing, closing around his beak. I can hear his muffled accent from under the spout.
In a moment, my arm hurls the controller at the bird, spinning through the air. The remote careens toward Azrael in a flurry of black and gray, but the blackbird disappears, and I hear an echoing cackle. The blue instead crashes into the picture frame with the squeal of broken glass. I flail, my hands reaching for the portrait of the woman as she falls to the wooden floor. A wail crosses my lips.
When I reach her picture, she is crying. Her black and white eyes spear anger into my chest again. She extends her hand about the confines of the portrait and drags a finger painfully through the air. Suddenly, her tiny palm pulls a wooden-handled pistol from underneath the frame and presses it to her temple without hesitation.
Nightmares run throughout my gray matter. I scream at her, but she doesn't listen. A sad smile curls up at the corner of her mouth as I grab her picture from the ground, too late, and watch as blood the color of chocolate syrup spatters across my hands. I fling the portrait to the ground and stumble to the other in the entryway. There, her silver-framed picture sits upright, and she is sneering at me. Her eyes turn the same golden color as Azrael's.
A startling slam from the screen door awakens my suspended nerves. It hangs limply on its hinges, thrown open into the wind. Outside, Azrael struggles against a blinding current of snow. His ruddy feather has turned bright scarlet. I pitch my body out the doorway, still covered in the blood of the golden-eyed woman.
The harvest moon has begun to recede into the night sky. I can hear the whirring and chirping of Azrael's iron rooster friend, thrashing in the tempest. Fear encases my lungs as I remember the sound of gunshots and the slick squelch of metal tearing through bone and flesh.
The woman is behind me then, her ruby hair fluttering in the snow, a gaping hole torn beneath her right temple. She smiles at me again and I tumble down the steps of the porch, struggling to rid myself of her image. My bare feet hit the snow with a hush. Azrael is there, squawking, screaming, thrashing about in the wind.
A ringing of loose screws comes from above. I look up to see Azrael rocketing towards me. He screams at me to move. It is then that I notice the iron rooster's base as it begins to shake itself free. The wind rips through his rigid tail feathers, spinning his lettered arms wildly. A single deadly gust break the rooster's grip. In a suicide free-fall, the rooster springs from the rooftop, hurtling toward the ground.
The moon disappears as I hear an iron body slam into one of flesh. Azrael is taken from the sky and thuds to the frozen ground in a pile of limp, obsidian feathers. I remain planted in the snow for a moment, watching his lifeless goldenrod eyes stare through the snowy static. The iron rooster lies helplessly next to the body of his blackbird friend -- unmoving, dead before he hit the ground.
I scuttle to the porch steps again, ignoring the image of my father's own dead amber eyes accompanied by the bright yellow hose spewing fumes into his lungs. His hair is red and fiery, just as that of the smiling woman. Just as that of my own. A single ruddy feather. Crazed, golden eyes.
When I reach the landing, panting, the woman's silver-framed photograph lies facedown upon the floor. My hands, shaking, no longer stained in the chocolate blood, reach gingerly toward the portrait. I brush the snow from its carboard backing. The door flails behind me. It takes several moments before I am able to turn the picture frame over.
With agonizing movements, I reveal her clean, beautiful face. The woman's temple has no pitiful, gaping hole, and she smiles as she always has. I watch as she bares her teeth at me, her eyebrows squinting down over her lashes. But I do not return her smile. I do not touch her cheek. There is no playful nature hidden in her once again black and white eyes.
I hear the faint ring of loosening screws again. Her frame begins to rattle. I try to pry my hands from her portrait, but they will not move. I find myself screaming for Azrael. The woman pulls her hand from the frame, clutching that wooden-handled pistol. Her eyes change to the color of amber as she drags the barrel to my temple instead of own this time.
I push myself backwards, out the door, trying to free my grasp from her photograph. Her finger drops down below the barrel, resting slightly on the trigger. I have reached the porch steps by now. I topple over the decline, down the steps and into the snow, where Azrael's scarlet feather lies. I watch helplessly as her finger twitches behind the trigger guard. Silverly flakes dance around my face under the now moonless night as the woman in the picture frame sends a bullet through my head.
