Blackbirds

Liberation, Ch. 16

The evening and the day unceremoniously began to brawl, with the submissive day eventually giving way. The evening then heaved the day into a flaky, peeling coffin, and lowered it to the standard depth of six feet.

Pete took a scalpel to the concentrated forests of facial hair on his chin, as he sat cross legged, with Bert to his left, and Xander perched even further to the left. One could almost have been forgiven for mistaking Bert and Pete for Jesse and Lawrence, considering the former were engaged in the pastime of observing the opaque clouds.

"Right," Bert declared. "Your questions, Xander. The ones from earlier – do you want them answering?" He peered over to Xander, who was now transfixed with enthusiasm and anticipation, as if electricity was ceaselessly gushing through his body.

"Yes." Replied Xander, his certainty undeniable.

"Well then," Bert commenced. "We'll start with The Coda." He took an audible gulp. "It destroyed this world – and by it, I mean Mother Nature herself. She imploded, self-destructed."

"We'd put her through too much." Pete imparted, as he uprooted a few bristles of facial hair.

"Remember Damon's book?" Bert prompted.

Xander nodded, yet was unsure of the comment's relevance.

"Well, in that book, there was an event called the 'Rapture'. Long story short, it didn't happen. The believers, like Damon, didn't ascend to heaven."

"Why not?" Xander pressed.

"Because it's all made-up." Pete cynically said, as he occasionally dabbled his tip toes into the conversation. He then raised his left hand and wiggled his fingers, illustrating his belief that religion was not only illusive, but also make-believe.

"So, us being humans, found a solution. Like we always have done, like we still do, and like we always will do." Bert's voice was tinged with resilience. "The solution was to build that big thing, and fly it up there, beyond the clouds." A hesitant yet enlivened grin sprouted between Bert's lips, like an infant grappling with the early hours of Christmas morning, in order to gape at the fabled face of Santa Claus. "We did it... we goddamn did it. We engineered the rapture."

"But here's the ironic thing, Xander." Pete mumbled, this time immersing more than just his toes into the discussion. "It wasn't the believers that made it onboard. Oh, no, no, no. What happened was survival of the richest. Those that could afford a place, the fat cats, the thinkers - they were the ones that made it onboard."

"Meanwhile, the have-nots... they were left down here." Bert chuckled. "Quite a contrast, huh? Survival of the richest... and survival of the fittest."

Xander sank his teeth into his lower lip. "How can you be sure of any of that? How do you know it's true?"

Bert dipped his head towards Pete, nominating him to answer the latest flurry of questions.

"Some of us were old enough to not only live through The Coda... but also to remember it." Pete smirked, indulging in his relative maturity compared to the other Blackbirds. "When it all kicked off, there was a hysteria. A fuzzy hysteria, though. 'A ship is leaving, but they're coming back for more of us'. You know, that sort of thing."

Pete felled a couple more quills of facial hair before continuing. "Plus there's the background chatter. When you've been a Blackbird in a few farms, like me, you realise that speculation is rife." He puffed his cheeks. "Every farm has their own rumours, their own versions, of why they're still coming for us and what goes on up there."

As the information soaked into Xander's brain, a tingling sensation lurked just beneath the surface of his skin, bringing with it a comforting warmth. It was a sense of liberation.

"Thank you," Xander announced. "No one has ever wanted to talk to me about The Coda."

"Right then, moving on." Bert muttered as he clapped his hands, encouraging the discussion to be free-flowing rather than laboured and viscous-like. "Gabe's death – that was your other question, right?"

Xander hummed, which answered Bert's question to the affirmative.

Gabe had sported silvery, curly tufts, and his chin, jaw and throat had been smothered in barbed facial hair. A well-thought of and intelligent individual, he had taught Jesse's farm how to read and write, maintaining that it would be imperative if they were to rebuild some form of society. Further, despite being delicate and elderly, he had habitually ventured out into The Bundu with the sweepers, due to his proficiency with regards to tracking.

Having unearthed all the facial hair from the pores on his chin, Pete tackled the next topic. "The lake we were at today... you were right – he died there. The sweepers got their timings all wrong. They should have come home sooner, but they didn't, and... the cold got to him." Even though he wasn't there at the time, Xander could envisage the numbing, wintry winds penetrating Gabe's skin, as if it was merely jelly. "It was, without doubt, Jesse's fault. He knew Gabe's limits, and he knew when the temperature would drop. It was a bad decision."

"And what about Andrew's death?" Xander hounded. "Evan said that was Jesse's fault, too."

"Woah, easy tiger." Pete countered, disrupting the fluidity of the conversation. "Come on, we'll leave that for another time."

Disgruntled, and with an offensive look caked across his face, Xander withdrew from the conversation, almost as if it had a musty, foul smell. He then ascended to his feet and started to amble towards the sanctuary they had created.

"God, that boy is tiring." Pete sighed, overcome by fatigue.

"Uh-huh." Was all that Bert could muster in reply. "Pete," He mumbled cautiously. "I need to show you something."