#50

Hey, fifty! Or, L.

*

Look, this fucking hawk took a rabbit right by the sidewalk on my way home from work, right by a busy street. Nevertheless, it chose to stand its ground right where it was, and I was thirty feet away. It allowed me to approach to a distance of less than ten feet, and when I had been there for about forty seconds, it began to feed, in spite of me and in spite of the flow of cars and occasional cyclist whizzing past us.

Oh, she was a big girl. Cooper's, size of a young bald eagle, eyes a modest orbit but a very attractive pale gold, small beak with an elegant hook, very large and well-formed legs, the talons comparatively small and graceful, very attractive chocolate and loam on the dark feathers and a clean white on the legs, more of cream on the belly and speckled breast. I'd never before seen a cooper, or any other hawk, feeding from so close. It was absolutely remarkable, not least because she let me get even closer without interrupting her regular, peaceable tearing at flesh and gut and bone.

After a while the rumbling approach of a bus seemed to change her attitude. She made ready and winged away with her kill between her talons, and when I saw her take wing, I realized her posture had not been forbearance for my rude proximity or fearlessness in the face of the traffic. It was grim resignation, only undertaken to lighten the carcass if possible before attempting to change to a safer and more private location. It had clearly been more likely in her mind that I would snatch her kill for my ape's cooking pot, or some other creature would, or that I would attack her for no reason at all, and finally that noisy giant monsters were like to kill her at any moment.

At any rate, she was able to fly--oh! So beautifully, such a wingspan, such a beat, and what strength and energy and courage, inarguable courage this time, this attempt, this heroic! But it all went cocks-up.

The hawk winged down the small grassy slope leading to a parking lot. It was just at this moment that a black van chose to roll down the parking lot towards the street at the bottom of the hill, screwing up her flight path and forcing her to veer and waste energy trying to gain height early--and it could not possibly have come at a worse time. An ambulance came chugging up the street past the parking lot, and the hawk's trajectory and momentum would doubtlessly have taken her straight into its path.

She immediately dropped her kill, so hard-won, for which she must have been so hungry and on which there remained plenty of sustenance, and flared hard and fast, angling into the sharpest stoop I have ever seen achieved, just a few degrees shy of ninety. For a flashing fraction of a second she was no more than a brown-and-cream brushstroke over a still photograph of the scene, a blurred motion line.

Banking, either to the left or right, might have been the smarter maneuver. The high corner of the ambulance smacked her with a sound that made me shove my fingers in my mouth and curse savagely around them, but she fluttered into a nearby tree under her own power, and when I made my way down there--I'd lost sight of her in the leaves--she wasn't in the tree, on the ground, or the bushes, so she saved herself from the deadly or maiming effects of a true collision. The rabbit lay where she had left it, half-eaten, and the cars had rolled on without pause or comment.

It was pretty fucking crazy, all in all.

*

I had an idea of what to write that wasn't to do with hawks, and I liked it enough that I was going to do it, but man, I'd promised and promised about the dang hawk and it had been days. So there you have the story of that hawk I saw, and I've forgotten the other thing, which happens a lot if I don't jot down my ideas in bullet points before I start elaborating on any single one. Perhaps it will come back to me, someday, and the timing will be such that I am able to type it into this text field.

*

It's funny. Now that people aren't trying to shove it down my throat and judge me metrically based on my ability to perform it on command, algebra seems fun as hell. That's just how I am. I ruined my life several times over based on saying fuck the Man, that old Master, and regret nothing. Algebra didn't go anywhere, and you always, always,

always

ALWAYS

say fuck you to the Master, actually sucker-punch him in his stupid gut and moron face, and when he says that His Order is for Your Good and also for Everyone Else's Good, the GREATER Good, you fucking slit his pig throat for him and pull his filthy forked deceiver's tongue out the aperture.

Remember, the Master is a metaphorical un-man, and what you do to him is figurative! Except for saying "fuck you", because fuck the Man, dude. Fuck that guy and everyone that wants to be him. I love peace, and never seek violent solutions, but fuck the Man. Screw that fucking guy.

*

That wasn't that thing from before. I just wanted to come out with zero prevarication or chance to misinterpret the fact that I am against the Man, and everything he stands for. Fuck him, actually.

--JL