-the story of Icarus is one not to be forgotten-
He didn't belong here so we ripped out his wings and threw him in the ocean.
Where he stayed for years and years.
Until a storm hit and washed him back up to shore.
Upon his arrival, we were not ha...
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𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒟𝑒𝓋𝒾𝓁'𝓈 𝒞𝒽𝒾𝓁𝒹
There once was a boy whose hair was too black. So dark that when you rubbed the tendrils between your fingertips, there'd be charcoal staining them afterwards. And though his hair was a synonym for obsidian the small, premature wings on his back were as white as snow. Ivory feathers pierce his skin and coil around his bones like ribbon. Silky and bewitching yet dangerous and consuming. They weaved their way through his tendons and ligaments, taking hold of him; of the mortal life he lived. There once was a boy who's persona was too different for my tight-knit, religious town.
I didn't know him personally because he was born in a time long before mine. My grandmother was living through the aftermath of his strangeness, her duty to alter the story so younger generations wouldn't hear of the acts my town committed. So by the time my Mother was born, she received a different tale; the Tale of the Devil's Child.
There once was a boy whose hair was so black it disappeared at night. And though his mother was a saint, his father a priest, the wings plastered to his spine branded him evil. The feathers weren't soft and delicate but rusty blades that cut anyone who got too close. No, but it didn't stop there. This boy didn't just look wicked, his heart was a rotting carcass as well. Day and night the boy would wreak havoc on the streets; Stealing, screaming, shoving and tripping whoever he could get near.
It wasn't until the fourth night of December when the town finally did something. When the rain started blossoming into Calla lilies and the women were busy knitting toasty, wool blankets, there was a boy who sinned. A boy who ripped apart the flesh of his knuckles to pull out the ingrown claws; A boy who bled ash and gasoline. Nobody knew his name but once he slit the throats of his sleeping mother and father, he was crowned the Devil's Child.
He was found the next day. Splashing in scarlet, smearing the couple's blood like paint. He had sharpened his teeth to gnaw on the finger's of his parents; chomping and chewing the appendages like gum. The townspeople screamed and cried. They snatched the boy from his home, chopped his wings off and bound him to the ocean. They threw him into the waves with his skin burnt black, and his teeth knocked out, and their spit matted to his scalp. The sea took him. It understood his pain. It accepted him, memorizing the lull of his body floating to the bottom; weighted by resentment. And though he was so accustomed to condemnation and hate, he knew he would get used to the homely sunbeams kissing his skin. The mellow hum of fish swimming by. Those soft whispers of a new story, a better story. Maybe, he could start to like the seaweed praising the ichor in his veins.
For years on, he'd shroud in the depths of our mistakes. He'd eat the salt and drink the water, choking on the permanent taste of coral.
The clock ticked long, never ending. And when the moon rose up to drink in the Fall breeze, the waves became choppy and relentless. They rose up high and slammed down into the shore, washing up creatures with bulging eyes, seaweed infested with lice and a bones less body with hair too black.
