Ben - Chapter Thirty Nine

As rivers gushing would have it, Ben’s enthused forced marches through snow, driving sun and beaming sleet had finally paid off. The prize he had hacked to get to lay in front of him.

With his old eyes darting through speckled and tainted glass, Ben had taken leave of his senses of safety, and with absent mind, he skipped forth to let said eyes become engorged on the colours, shapes and sizes that lay in front. His mind would soon burst like a pestilential flea attached to a bear’s anus.

Perching himself against a large coloured-shiny, he savored the moment, looking to share it with an old friend. He instinctively and habitually reached his paw into his pocket to fish out the tainted brown leaf and pipe, before stopping himself to remind of a habit that should well and truly be dead. Somber thoughts of this old friend, recently gone, were replaced with the relief of shaking a cough that would restart a dormant volcano.

Each dart of the eye would reveal all and new. Large and silent leathers placed themselves like raindrops across the sightscape. Some had decided to vomit their contents, coloured and tied strings, across what could be seen. Of course, Ben had not seen such large rabbit-warmers before. These creatures must have stood tall as trees and eaten elephant trunks for breakfast.

Their sitting places were larger still, and tainted with the drab conformity of a three hour long sermon. The patterns, it was keenly observed, matched those of the wings of the Queen natwhinnies.

Not only that, the life teeming here was something that could not be written, for one had to see it to fully appreciate. Dancing lilkypipes, darting withersneegs and runbersnipes. All perched in unison. All handing out liquids, solids and fires, ported around in baskets made of feather and fur. The light colours could blind you with richness, and the punchy smell of aviation fuel that remained could act as the coup de grâce.

A living and breathing city. The smell was indeed overpowering. Plastic bin liners draped in petrol and put under the sun would be the best way to describe it. Trading stalls fashioned from tree-bark lined along the large sticking metal, the left arm of this old sky-beast that rattled louder than the belchbears.

It was written and well spread that the noise of this old sky-queen was something to note, as she released her last in her death throes. The sound of the impact rumbled the whole forest and a bright redness kept the sky awake for several sun-cycles thereafter.

Where she had fallen, a legend was born.