(no subject)

He crouched upon the ruined wall, cement brick crumbling beneath the rough grasp of his wire talons. His bird of prey beak swiveled from side to side as he took in the land. He had grown up here, once, long ago, but now he liked circling to land on the crumbling walls. When he looked down from the sixteenth floor, he sometimes saw them moving like ants below him, foraging in the rubble. If asked, he would say, in his flat voice, that he came there because they foraged. But in truth, he could for a little while remember the boy he had been. Faint memories: a red ball; a woman who laughed and smelled nice; a giantess wonderful and loved stooping over him. No humans would ever climb so high. It was not safe. But if the wall crumbled beneath him, he had only to spread his steel wings and soar on the polluted air currents.