Wood

It usually goes like this: I imagine all the people, straddling the bus-seats in peace, riding to their prizes like veritable Nimrods, legendary huntsmen of yore, and woe be to those who find the other meaning of the word more fitting for the flock. They are, each of them, prophets and oracles in their foresight, having armed themselves for they can’t deny that the prize may never fulfil them, as M menacingly sings to 007 just as the FM station cheekily reminds this flock of 70-odd Orions. They, each of them, every single day, endure and survive the wiles of Our Lord Yog-Shoggoth who shall one day be displaced. And like them, as I imagine, I travel upstream, to mount the much vaunted seats of wood most finely varnished (in this world, unlike in many others), and learn, imbibe, be inspired by the polished craft and degenerate art of the trade, the foxtrot of puppets. Call me Sashi, call me Ishmael, call me what you will, but call our conductor Herzog as he guides us upstream through and beyond the wrath of Yog. Aboard the bus I imagine infomercial screens that lend to our apparent quotidian odyssey a sense of the Cosmic: on this day Pete Best shot Richard Starkey in broad daylight and by the will of the Throne became The Drummer, the most silent and shadowy and deadly of the four enforcers of her Music Regiment; on this day, Chacha woke up to a New Dawn minus the Throne but still subservient to the Resistance, for Yog must be overthrown. You are special for being born on this day; you are mundane for you have been denied all of these other things that happened on this day. Nevertheless you are Orion, on the Hunt for Varnished Wood, and you belong to the World. As the Omnibus, Pequod 101, moves past the New Gates of the Police Station (bright airy music playing at the crossings) we read, as we do every day, the inscription on those Gates: “koro snan nobodhara jole”, and we glimpse, in the distance, the sea that now fills the crater upon which there was Land once, and a Fortress of Commerce, and the sea swells like Hokusai on Coke, and a common thought sweeps through the Hunter Collective: “Oh Shit, the Maderchods will rise again today,” and as commuters in this city, Dis city, they are prepared for assault. 
Yet, I imagine, I embark hurriedly at the Fourth Gate, for beyond lies shelter, varnished wood, and the promise of tools of vindication and vengeance and warm companionship and, say it already, a better life. 
I imagine, and then I board the bus. And I look around, but there isn’t a chair.           

Yes Father

 “- Eaten well,” he finishes.

Terrified faces. Shaking hands. Foul smells spoiling sweet aromas of gourmet meal. First victory.

As the words finally escape his mouth he knows that he has created legend.  A myth that is already writ large on these faces that are as clear to him in the darkness as the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. As clear as the Narrows, as the mad, as the poor, are not to these people.

He allows himself a moment of gloating, a moment to soak in his victory. He is no poet, as his friend and father back in the Mansion would attest, and perhaps later, Bards and Balladeers and Sensationalists shall embellish his Legend. For now, he shall fall back on the clichés. On his many vulgarities.

It is a Chilling thought.

He is but one of them. He has his Mansion. But he has journeyed to the depths of his Palace, to an altogether different kind of depravity from theirs. The only depths they have plumbed: decadence. 

Resting on their gilded table, counting down the time, sweat heavy on his brow under the stuffiness of his cowl despite the unearthly chill in the room, he makes his excuses, he makes his penance. 

Nice chandelier.

Pretty plates.

Tempting food. Sharp teeth, finely honed over the ages.

“But your feast is nearly over.” 

Finely stained trousers.

And in that twilight moment of his birth, before he puts out the candle, he thinks, just once, of legacy. A long line, one of the oldest con-jobs in the world, and not philanthropy- that is their word. No, he knows, he asserts, that he is no champion,

That

She is no-one’s saviour. She is not offering emancipation. Salvation. She is here to help. Disregard circumstances of birth, Disregard Parity of Purchasing Power, Disregard Equitable Distribution, Disregard the Iron Heels: She is here, simply, to take back what was plundered. 

This city. Its wealth. Its spirit. 

This Haven of Goats that have, for far too long, had wolves living among them. 

The cowl rests uneasy on her head, and thus its likeness to a Crown makes her uncomfortable. As she climbs through the window, as the room is plunged into darkness, as the smoke becomes a shroud she thinks of the years of preparation and the months of planning that it took to come here. 

All of which culminated in throwing the smoke bomb, a swift jerk of the hand, in breaking the window, the tinkling of glass, in moving through the tiny mirrors darkly. 

Who benefits? Who is she helping? Who, in her arrogance, has she forgotten? They do not need saving, but do they need, or want, her help? 

Does little Jason from the Narrows need or want the secret hand of a cloaked beneficiary, the little Jasons of the stolen tyres and the venom pellets whom generations of her forebears have failed to show anything but crowbars and Death?

Is she not the one wearing the cape?

No higher purpose. Maybe just the thrill. The terrified faces. The mixed aromas. The stained trousers. The satisfaction of creating legend.

Fulfilling the circle.

As she lands on the table, and through the darkness sees clearly their faces, the thoughts clear, to be replaced by one single word of power and purpose. The cowl is no longer a crown or a twisted reflection of their ugliness, but an ancient, beautiful face from beneath the ground, a comfort; the cape is now a swirling mass of terror, unfurled.

Sweat drips from her brows. “Ladies, gentlemen,” She begins. “You have-“

When she finishes, there will be Legend.