"Almost Green"

Epilogue

Hoot-hoot.

Some fowlbeast whined lazily atop a power line.

"Two in the morning. It's two in the goddamn morning."

His annoyed neighbor prodded with a wing. Feathers ruffled between the two birds as they fought over dominance on the swaying cable.

"It's two in the morning, these lazy fuckers need a shrill wake up call." The hooter protested, fighting off the other's dull talons. "Wake up at two, make the city some moolah."

"I don't give one. I don't fucking care about the city." His assailant kept charging on, tickling his flesh with claws buried in fluff. "Let me sleep you sorry pissant. It's not about the city, it's about my biological clock."

"Biological clock? If you cared so much about your biological clock, you'd pack your shit and leave. No one asked you to sit with me. This is your own free will, you're a slave to yourself." He chuckled in a very fowl-like fashion (if birds could even physically chuckle, that is.) "There's plenty of space."

"..."

Their sharp gazes swept the surroundings of dead industrial might. Red-brick tenement hovels were like canyons to the main street, and they never crossed the borders of their summits. Most windows were either boarded shut or still gleaming with glass.

And the other power lines were full of buzzing currents. One even retained the hanging, fried corpse of a crispy-crust-covered, tongue-out, bloated raven.

"Plenty of space." He repeated, nudging his feathered brother. "Maybe you can acquaint yourself with that corvid fella."

"I'm going to kill you tonight." The fowl sighed, longing with grace for a better world and a better class of power-line buddy. "Once and for all, I'm going to stop that hooting and Lungmen is going to thank me for it."

"Oh, don't be so brash. It doesn't fit you." The hooter reassuredly backed away from the other's springing talons. "... Besides, look. Look, look down there. Someone's up and productive. Someone took the wake-up call with poise."

And led by the tip of his pointing claw, both fowlbeasts gazed curiously at the commotion that had just entered the tenebrous street.

It was firstly a noise, a clatter and churn of many rusted pistons tandemly at work. Then, the shriek of a headlight's pair forced the bird's eyes to half close. Powering through, they were rewarded with the sight of an old, rickety van tumbling down the road.

"That someone's transport belies any sort of poise you might've insinuated." The hooter's friend sourly implied. "Look at that. God, that's loud. Too broke to buy a muffler."

"Good, good. Skimp on that rattletrap, get a job. Go to work, work all day. Work all month, buy a muffler." He murmured with content laughter. "I love the capital way of being. I love Lungmen."

"Shhh. Shush." The talon-wielder put a talon to his beak. "He stopped. Look."

"..."

And indeed, the van did put a dot to its journey. It clambered with effort onto the pavement and died, leaving the street as dark and empty as it had been before the intrusion.

"In front of the burnt library." The hooter whistled. "You think he's part of the demo crew? What if- what if we get a firework show live, right now? What if he tears that smoldering piece of shit down and wakes up the entire city?"

"I'd fly down there and gouge his eyes out." His buddy groaned in exasperated annoyance. "That thing barely even got extinguished yesterday, now they're gonna bring it down in the middle of the night? Now? That'd be an insult to its memory."

"How so?"

"How so?" He spat, an incredulous look to match his indignation. "What your tiny capitalistic brain can't comprehend is that things tend to have a value that goes beyond just how much you can pawn them off for at the property market. That poor building's been there for God knows how long and it took just one little spark, just one teen- or, or drunkard arsonist, just one short day, and one short night to wipe it completely off the face of Lungmen. Don't you think that's just straight up inhumane? Cruel, at the very least?"

"Buddy." The hooter put a wing over his feathered garb. "We're not human. We're birds."

"..." His peanut brain began chewing the words. Soon, they all moulded into a fowl-feed mush of a realization. "Oh. Oh, right."

"Yeah." Pat, pat. The gesture loosened his tense shoulders. "So just sit back and enjoy the demo. Someone's coming outta the van, look. Walking to the entrance."

And there was someone there, for sure. Some poor sod waddled from the driver's seat, his wings' grayness matching the sadness of the ring above his head. Tip-tip-toed his way over to the burnt down door and stared at the ravaged interior. The birds couldn't see his face, nor could they see his gaze as it searched for something neither could grasp. It eventually found nigh but nothing. Just a caveman carve graffiti on the wall, one of an Originium rose veiled by the warm words "FUCK YOU, RICKETTS" beneath. And soot. A lot, lot of soot everywhere.

"..."

Andy sighed. His only arm itched for the jacket, inching to fish out the phone Duflot gave him.

His eyes scrunched at the sudden brightness. Tip-tip-tapping, he navigated through the contact's list and pushed himself into an outgoing call.

"..."

And waited.

"..."

Buzzed.

"..."

And waited.

"..."

"..."

Until the receptor tinted green.

"Yo. Yo, yo, W to the H to the Y, the fuck are you callin' me for at two in the morning? Got ya mind ganked? Didn't I tell ya not to run up on my cell like that?"

The voice of a rather irritated penguin erupted from the speaker.

"Went in one ear and out the other? Thought I had that shizz figured the last time Exu started ringing drunk over everyone in the company. You drunk too? Huh? Wait, are you? You loose of the booze? That it?"

"..."

Andy closed his eyes, gently shook his head.

"No, Mr Emperor, I'm not drunk."

"Huh." He sounded almost relieved. "Good. Good, good. Off the potion at two in the mornin' on a workin' day? Hell, I'd beat yo ass myself. But I won't, cause you're still the top gun, huh? Hehe."

"..." Andy swallowed. "Yeah. Yeah, and about "workin' days"..."

"Mmm? Yeah, Drewie, shoot."

His fingers paled a little over the phone's frame. It was difficult, sure, but it didn't feel agonizing.

It felt relieving.

"... Are you guys still hiring full-time?"