there was a tribe, small, surviving in the mountains.
The earth had changed, continuing to grey. The ill soil induced a recursion in what remained of man. They abandoned their worldly manipulations and gave in to unknown ideas and impulses.
a young woman in prime was selected once a year for participation in a feeding ritual to protect the food from incubating toxins. It would be cold and stormy the night she was honored with news of the impending sacrifice of her body.
She was to bathe in the frigid, ashy river, let the strange oils carry through her, penetrating past skin to leech the rhythmic vitality of her circulation. In her blood lay the key to the answer for the men on earth, and they pulled her from the water to watch the transformation unfold. Her eyes rolled back. Her hair, skin, nails, lost color, her veins protruding, hair beginning to fall out, living ash running through her body. She pointed upward at the sky, eyes yellowing now, still turned inward. A cry for the bird! “What bird?” the men asked, the white one, she replied.
She saw it slam its delicate white body onto a phallus, over and over again, her lips receded with her youth as she frenzied and let loose gutteral moans for the bird, screeching, whining and begging for its salvation.
The tribe looked no more, turning away, the men lit their candles and ate in peace.
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