June 2010

First he robbed the nests. Rough-skinned, torn loincloth flapping about his hips, he snugged up the forest’s tall trees and grabbed at branches. Ants swarmed about his flesh, but it didn’t matter. He swung on lianas just beneath the canopy, filling his hide-lined bag with birds that squawked and pecked as his fist closed around their necks, wringing life from them.

Beyond the canopy was the sun. And inside the sun, the gods. And the gods did as they pleased.

Icarus — someone else’s name but he had snatched it for himself — huddled in his cave among countless footprints left in the dust, and plucked. He threw tiny heads into a stinking pile sharp with beaks and blind, staring eyes. The curled claws stringing the walls looked almost festive. Limp bodies sizzled over cookfires, dripping fat.

The gods didn’t need food; why should he? But the gods had ambrosia, or once did in the distant mythic past. Icarus had no ambrosia. Bird meat would do. Darkened blood slaked his thirst as he ripped their powers of flight from them.