Chapter 3

Don't you want to push me parsley?
Looks to me, dear
Like you've got plenty there to push

-Sondheim

I wake to moonlight and a thump.

Moments pass, and sharpened shadows cross the silver coin. Roaches on the window?

Rustling.

That's enough. A swing from the wrong side - I do not wish to crush his highness, and tonight I'm not a bat. My ears will not alert me to his wing-positions.

Briefly, then, on tip-toe I make circuit of the bed. Upon the night-stand, ruddy claw-prints. Talons in tomato soup, and streaks that lead below.

The trail is true. Below me, in the gap between the wall and plastic shelving, something tries to burrow in the blanket that I left.

Something white. Something feathered. Something feeble and unused to weakness.

I crouch and reach my hand toward the trembling mound. It's fabric that I touch.

One touch, and out he slides.

Large eyes that will not look at me, joints that do not heed their owner's will.

He opens his beak, the cute widdle barn owl, and sneezes.

I did not dream of him this way.

Well, maybe once, for which I blame a book of myths, and Leda.

I grew out of it.

I grew in wanting, yearned for other things not swan nor owl may provide in safety and decorum.

I will have them. He will grow.

My fingers meet his tiny chest. Fine, the feathering is here, and warm. His heart beats faster than I had expected.

He cannot struggle. Not sedated.

He is mine, and I will shape him.

Patty-cake, patty-cake, knead the dough... his frame, this shape, is like a sculpture in wet clay. With pressure properly applied, it's possible to change its shape.

With three fingers of each hand I press unwanted feathers into his lungs, careful with my thumbs to keep his fragile heart from harm. Each time a quill melts back into his flesh, he squeaks and skips a beat.

Such an odd thing for a king to do - to squeak.

All the reason to return him to his proper shape.

I press, and melt, and soon his chest resembles... haggis, if it really comes down to it. He looks like a medium haggis before cooking, to which someone has stapled wings and talons and a head with eyes that try to open but cannot.

There's smoothness here, at least - smoothness, in too small a space.

How shall I change this veined and slickened lump into a proper chest?

I press my palm upon its surface, then I tug. Experimentally, with caution.

Resistance, and a quicker heartbeat on his part. Moonbeams strike him, showing sweat. I reach for them, and find they sink into his being. Nothing's being wasted. Not while he is in my hands, and yet unsure of what my purpose is.

To think that once he wanted to be mine. Only mine, and utterly.

Now that he sees, now that he feels what this implies... perhaps he regrets what he offered.

Nothing fills the nearby air save breaths and beats, and in the background, too far off, computers and nurse footsteps.

Another tug. More resolute.

He yields.

The flesh pours out in waves and folds. I yelp at first, but then remember where I am and shift to silence.

Easy, it is not.

It looks as if I'd turned the tap, filled a tub with his pectoral.

Muscle crumpled on itself like soft-serve.

I've not eaten in too long a time.

He's in pain. It's taking far too much to keep his wings pinned down, even when I place my knees upon them and use all my weight for leverage.

His talons scratch me, weakly, on my inner thighs.

I don't mind. I'm in a hospital, why should I fear infection?

His beak snaps and opens, snaps and opens, reaching up toward my face.

Not a kiss he wants, this time.

I take the other side, the un-inflated one, into my hands and draw it out. Almost like pasta, or like making pizza crust.

Soon his chest and belly are expanded, coiled. So near, so almost very nearly there...

...but he is empty; I've not baked the dough, not let it rise.

What shall I use for yeast?

The scratches stopped a while ago. He lacks the energy. His lungs appear to tremble, and his little heart is insufficient to the task of keeping up his new physiognomy.

No more a haggis, but an inflatable mattress with all the air drawn out, and little lumps where full-sized organs should have been.

"Shall I blow in you?" I ask him, and his head turns. Just a little. Heavy breathing, fluttering eyelids. "I don't know how to fill you up."

No answer but a creak that is his present scream.

So much was planned, so much is wasted. I'd pictured myself draped in him, in vivid dreams.

And now I had the chance to wear him like a mantle. Chest and waist and just below, all turned into a flattened sheet of pulsing leather. Arms and fingers, hands I thought would brush my hair and trace my lips, are now small wings. Ornaments. I could put one behind each ear, if I should wear him as a cloak, his owl's head atop my own, a hood and...

...and...

There's something there, that image. Someone else. A story lost. A feathered hat that spoke the truth and begged for coin...

No matter.

He's brought me food, now he may bring me clothes and be my cloak.

It's so much easier to finish tasks when you have ends in mind.

Not that I think that this will be his end.

He'll find a way. In dreams, or out.

I stand and drag him to the middle of the room. The little square of light within my door's unbroken. Good. If it were split in two, then that would mean a sentry on the other side. Someone to watch.

We are alone, the king and I. Alone save for the moon, and roaches, and abundant floor where I have leave to spread him out and flatten him.

I knead and roll and press until from widdle owl he's turned to towel. Big ones, at the beach.

His wings, his claws, I've left untouched. One at each corner. There is nothing he can do to me, when they are so spread out.

His neck is in the middle of the upper towel's edge.

Well, nearly middle. I may perhaps just slightly have misjudged that.

Not on purpose.

I did ask him.

He was silent on the matter, though he dared a glare.

The sedatives are weakening, I think.

The night is also waning. I should hurry, and I do.

Another glance, ensuring that all medical's at bay. They've hurt me for this sort of thing before, and cited laws and numbers.

No one, so I'm safe.

I lift my robe, remove it, and lie down upon him.

Like lying with myself, almost. The flesh that I was born with on the flesh I shaped and dreamed.

It wasn't meant to be like this. Not really.

First he tries to nip my scalp, but cannot reach, and he gives up.

Then I'm cold, and have to wrap him 'round my front. This does not work well; he's not quite the width I need. I pin his wings to my shoulder-blades and hold them in place with my thumbs and fore-fingers.

He warms, in time, but it's not warmth enough.

No doubt his blood has trouble circulating.

He shivers. Constantly. It's not unpleasant, but I think he's scared.

I should tell a story. Stories always bring me safety.

Save the ones that don't.

What tale to tell the owl that has become a towel?

I've decided.