178. Someday, That Bird
The gray morning came like ash out of a dead mountain.
The light sighed down through the stone bodies of the skyscrapers.
Breathing on and off the wounds of gaping glass and steel.
The serrated heart of downtown.
The rubble strewn streets of the urban vertebrae.
Something like whispers scratched and scraped the dried blood off asphalt and sidewalk surfaces.
The shuffling feet of defeated, deafened souls.
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The raised highway rested in numb silence.
The L-Train tracks stood naked, sheen with autumnal condensation from overnight.
Across the bazaars and courtyards of the northern district, the rising sun glared gray against the cold granite.
Challenging invisible steam to rise where feet would not tread.
The people…
Housed in their apartments, their flats, their holes.
Too tired, too winded, or too bleeding to come out.
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In the center of downtown, the charred blades of a HIND helicopter dangled in the rays of the Sun.
A cold halo of scorched black splashed outward from the fractured shell of the dead metal bird.
Singed cars, street signs, and shattered newspaper stands bowed to the offering.
And bodies….
Bodies shuffling listlessly.
Dangling faded uniforms and bundles of plastic yellow tape.
The flags of a battlefield.
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The Lieutenant led his men down Main Street.
He was on crutches.
He was flanked by at least twenty other officers, all answering to him.
He gazed left and right at the ruins they passed.
Charred black jeeps.
Shattered building fronts.
The scattered and shattered remains of satellite dishes fallen from Kobayashi Tower.
The Lieutenant took a deep breath as he hobbled along.
The policemen squabbled back and forth with their radio communicators and uttered inquiries and advice to the acting Commissioner.
But for a moment, their words slipped off his mind.
A sensation like unto the glazed shine of gray in his eyes.
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In the dozens.
In the hundreds.
Residents peered out skyscraper windows.
People stood pensively before building entrance ways.
They watched with a numb silence as trucks of the National Guard and Red Cross rumbled through the streets of Downtown.
Warm and confused faces of out-of-state volunteers looked out onto the cold, autumn world.
The cold, weathered faces.
The shocked eyes and shattered breaths.
Mothers cradled their children, each as mute as the other.
Young men sat wearily on their haunches, staring at the ground.
Middle-aged people ran hands through their hair as if searching for hidden patches of skin.
Everyone nervous and yet nerveless.
Like the off switch of the City had been jammed.
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Outside the hospital, a row of white tents were erected as M.A.S.H.'s were expanded outward from the structure.
Volunteers from all over the region hastily erected facilities for treating the most basic of triage.
The most serious cases were moved upstairs into the hospital building itself.
Citizens, workers, and paramedics scrambled back and forth in some panicky action that almost resembled Life.
As more and more trucks rolled into the guarded parking lot of the hospital, dozens upon dozens of citizens lined up.
They had scraps of paper in their hands.
Hastily printed, monochromatic snapshots of loved ones.
They held the papers up, yelped desperately at the passing drivers and faces, and remained ever minding their spot.
Half of them broke down, crying on their knees by the middle of the afternoon.
A few lucky ones sobbed into each other's arms as the Sun passed.
Scant papers started blowing away in the wind.
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Tempest lay silently in his hospital bed.
His dark eyes were gazing unblinking past the semented ceiling.
Lindsay sat tiredly…sadly beside him.
She sighed.
He stared.
The world clamored outside in the parking lot beneath the high floor window.
Eventually, there was an earth-shattering knock on the door.
Lindsay looked up.
A nurse walked in. She gazed into the room, glanced at Lindsay, and motioned.
Lindsay blinked. She craned her neck.
Antoine, Jack, and Lillian could be seen through the crack in the hallway outside.
Lindsay exhaled. She stood up. Paused. Rested a gentle hand on Tempest's wrist.
A beat.
Tempest gently closed his eyes. He took a deep breath.
Slowly, Lindsay took her hand off his wrist and walked out to join her friends.
The nurse closed the door behind them.
Tempest opened his eyes again.
And they were moist.
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Jack quietly lead Lindsay down a crowded, hospital hallway.
Whispering something to her.
Antoine and Lillian walked slowly behind.
Jack came to a room and pointed inside.
Lindsay gazed.
There were four beds. Each occupied by a wounded citizen….recovering.
And one of them—her leg in a cast—was Bonnie. And she was asleep. And she was looking more alive than ever.
Lindsay took a deep breath. She bit her lip and looked at Jack.
Jack said something. He smiled gently.
Lindsay shuddered once. She clenched her eyes shut. She started to lean forward….shaking….
Jack gently embraced her and rubbed the small of her back.
Lindsay sobbed against him for the sake of sobbing itself.
Antoine and Lillian sniffed. They both gently walked over and joined the two in a group embrace.
They all shuddered and sobbed as a friendly whole.
And they swayed.
And swayed…..
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In homes.
In back offices.
In hospital corners.
In diners.
In electronics stores.
In bars.
Every t.v. was tuned to what nearly every channel in the nation was showing.
Helicopter shots of a City bespeckled with rising smoke and crumbling building fronts.
Home video footages of crazed, green-eyed men on the back of homicidal black jeeps.
A HIND helicopter exploding in a brilliant fireball before the camcorder shorts out.
A dark swordsman and a green beast hurriedly rushing crowds of people into a bank vault.
Then….
Sporadic comments by anchormen and anchorwomen with long faces.
Radio calls. Phone calls. Reports. Rumors. Reports of rumors and rumors of reports.
All the while, the orange-splash of the City map for all of the Western Hemisphere to see.
All the while a ticker flashing red rolling across the bottom of the screen.
Info hotlines. Blood and money drives. Volunteer sign-ups.
And eventually…..
Eventually…….
The body tolls.
And everyone watched numbly.
In and out of the City.
Their eyes round.
Their mouths agape.
Their legs and hands shifting nervously.
Throats dry.
Hearts steady.
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It reached the streets first.
Paper faster then blood.
On newspaper stands and in stacks alongside convenience store entrances.
'Robin de Los Titans Es Muerto'
"Merle des Titans Est Mort"
'Robin ist tot.'
'Robin, liber Titanov, Pogib v boyu'
'Robin of the Titans Is Dead'
In the midst of their furious work, volunteers glanced at the headlines.
And citizens.
And wandering victims.
And….
They all paused.
With a sigh of all sighs to come and had come shifting through their tubes.
Shivering.
And yet….
Moving on.
Weaker or stronger.
But altogether broken.
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Mothers and fathers gasped at first receiving word.
Children cried instantly.
Lonely residents stood in the shadows of their kitchens and bedrooms looking for a place to gaze into and lose themselves unto death.
In apartment hallways, young teenage neighbors hugged and sobbed.
Girls cried over each other's shoulders.
Guys wandered alone and haloed in gray gloom.
Their eyes to the floor.
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At nearly three dozen times in a twenty-four hour period, police officers paused.
Their hands crossed.
Silent.
………
In armories.
Besides squad cars.
Bordering wrecked building fronts.
Alongside rescue operations.
The badges of fallen policemen and officers lay side by side on desktops, window sills, and first aid crates…..like spontaneous altars for the deceased.
And the gray words of the newspaper rang forth.
'Robin is Dead'.
'Robin is Dead'.
One officer or another hung a poster taken from his kids' room of the Boy Wonder swinging in action.
It was posted on the corner of the crumbling police department. And in between salvaging the ashes of the landscape, officers and rescue workers gazed at the yellow swish of the young vigilante's cape.
Breathless.
The Lieutenant stared at it.
His face cold and hard….melted into some sort of weathered ore.
He turned and began to hobble away when his crutch got caught in something.
He glanced down.
He knelt—wincing—and picked up a scattered ribbon of yellow police tape.
He stared at it.
He looked again at the poster.
He saw the familiar gold of the hero's cape.
He then fingered the tape…and without much of a thought, he ripped the plastic gold ribbon into a shorter length and wrapped it around his wrist.
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In a half-crumbled apartment, officers were forming a train of men to help guide victims down to the street level.
Every officer had a yellow scrap of police tape wrapped around their wrist.
They carefully helped every man, woman, and child down while the Lieutenant loudly gave commands and directed the ongoing rescues.
As he pointed his finger, the golden scrap around his wrist flapped in the wind.
And people saw it.
And they saw the headlines.
And sooner than they could sob…
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A truckload of volunteers rolled into the streets of downtown.
They all hopped out and began unloading packages of goods and supplies.
Each and everyone of them had the golden ribbon around their wrists.
And the waiting, weathered people standing by their damaged homes accepted their supplies and gifts….also with yellow ribbons.
And the police patrolling the streets into the late afternoon.
And the fire fighters putting out the remains of a fire….
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The gates of the hospital were growingly lined with scraps of paper with missing person's faces.
Flapping in the breeze.
Most black and white printouts.
Some of them color.
Some of them polaroids.
Only a spare soul or two dared to patrol the images.
And onward into the evening, the mournful loved ones returned to the effigies they erected…
And stapled tiny gold ribbons to the sheets.
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The world was darkening again.
The Sun was sighing its head past the horizon of the former holocaust.
A gentle golden haze drifted down across the urban land.
Neighbors actually came together to talk.
A few brave smiles.
A couple of sniffs and choked breaths in between.
Words of recovery….
Of the day to come.
Of rebuilding.
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Mrs. Fillmore sat on a bundle of sleeping bags in the back of a pawn shop's stockroom.
She gazed off into space while she cradled the heads of her two little girls to her chest.
The sisters curled up against their mother.
Sleeping.
Their faces softly wet.
Mrs. Fillmore gazed up over the distant counter at the front of the store.
Renee and Daniel stood in the shattered entranceway.
Staring out onto the golden street as ambulances and squad cars and firetrucks slowly drifted by.
Daniel's silhouette showed his one arm in a sling while Renee's shadow sported a swollen belly of life.
And as they stared out into the slowly mending desolation….Renee drifted over and wrapped an arm around Daniel's good shoulder.
He leaned his head to the side and let her fair cranium rest in the crook of his neck.
And the two sighed together.
Standing as one.
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Lisa sat numbly on a cement planter bordering Phaser Labs.
Her black hair seemed tangled and tossed in the wind.
Her one eye was thin.
She stared across the courtyard at Mr. Knight and his two children, Ashley and Greg.
The man was shaking.
His eyes lost since the night before.
Not once did he seem to recognize his offspring.
And yet…they clung to him.
Their faces tight.
Their limbs taut.
Silent.
Lisa took a deep breath.
She felt a hand on her shoulder.
She turned around.
Her lips parted.
Janice smiled hopefully, with that damnable smirk of hers that would never go away come hell or highwater.
Hell or high water….
Behind her, Hope and Tiffany stood. Both of whom were doing a terrible job of hiding away their tears.
Janice said something.
And Lisa braved a smile of her own, but it was painful.
Janice leaned in and hugged her.
Lisa squeezed her back tighter than she thought she would.
After a shuddering breath or two, Lisa looked over the other girl's shoulder and blinked her one eye.
Alan stood with his hands in his pockets…looking as small and as pale as ever. And yet the world was finally matching him.
Lisa parted, patted Janice on the side, and walked over.
Alan took a deep breath and waved.
Lisa waved back.
The two sat down together.
And talked….
And at some point, Alan rested a gentle hand on Lisa's shoulder.
And Lisa didn't move.
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I strolled down the broken streets.
It was dark.
Very….very dark.
The Sun had gone down.
The shattered City still lay in shadow.
I took my shades off and exhaled.
My pace disjointed.
My limbs numb.
I passed by bodies in the murk and autumnal fog.
Things were swimming and vibrating beside me.
Creating a solemn white noise like distant choirs sobbing softly.
Citizens rushing to beat curfew.
Late night volunteers.
Firefighters.
An officer or two stepped up to me on a couple of occasions with stern faces. They were about to order me to 'go home' until they came close enough to see my black eyes. And then my battered body. And then my bloodstained sword. And they saw who I was. And with a burst of wind kicking at the golden ribbons around their arms they swallowed, stepped back, and went away.
Bloodstained sword……
I glanced down.
I was holding Myrkblade.
And Myrkblade was red.
Red Aviarrrrrry……
I shivered.
I gritted my teeth.
I plopped down on an unearthed shard of concrete.
I sat down.
I reached up and stripped my bandanna off.
A fan of black hair waved in the cold wind.
I bundled the bandanna up, strung it around Myrkblade, and tried to stroke the blood off.
Numbly.
Not entirely aware of….
I exhaled.
The blood had dried.
The stains refused to leave.
And the bandanna was beginning to rip and split.
I gritted my teeth and applied more pressure.
Strands snapped.
The red fabric of the bandanna turned to thread and--
I snarled.
I tossed Myrkblade down.
It clattered and clanked across the broken street and stopped a few feet from my boots.
I panted.
A chill ran up my limb--
I jolted again.
I gripped the circular disc of my prosthetic.
With a hiss, I snapped my metal arm off and threw it down besides Myrkblade.
With my stub of an arm stretched out to the side, I bent over.
I planted my right hand over my naked face.
And I breathed…..breathed….breathed….
The sound……
The sounds……
I shuddered.
I shook.
I can't remember the sound………
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Beast Boy sat on the edge of Titan's Tower.
Night fell.
It became hideously dark.
He sniffed.
He hugged his knees to his chest for the fiftieth time alone that day.
He burrowed his green head into his legs.
His eyes clenched shut and his teeth grit.
Tears flowed….
And then.
Sounds…shuffling sounds.
Voices.
And….
A halo of light.
Beast Boy looked up.
For the night had been broken.
He sniffed.
He ran a thin, shaking wrist across his cheeks and wiped the moisture away.
He swallowed.
He crawled along the edge of the Tower.
He peered down….down, down towards the rock bluffs and the island abroad.
And his lips parted.
Dozens…hundreds….three hundred….
At least five hundred people had gathered outside the Tower.
Most of them were in their teen years.
High schoolers.
Prep students.
Public school students.
Exchange students.
Citizens, visitors, but mainly citizens.
Weak-eyed, strong-eyed, wet-eyed.
Parents and young adults.
Off-duty paramedics and relief workers.
Even children….little things from grade school.
Old couples hand in hand.
They were holding candles.
As many candles as they could hold.
As they could afford on the after-eve of an Armageddon.
And some of them stood and some of them sat and most of them cried.
And they all had golden ribbons of various materials and various shades tied neatly around their wrists.
And all of them faced the Tower.
With silent applause.
The voices that tears could not wail.
And they remained their for well unto three hours, braving the blackness of night with their mutual, golden glow.
For at least as long as it took for Beast Boy's eyes to go dry.
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Raven and Cyborg stood in the Main Room of Titan's Tower.
They stared out onto the candle-lit vigil.
Breathing softly.
At some point, Cyborg forced his eyes shut.
He turned around and shuffled into the darkness besides the kitchen unit.
His replacement limbs leaned against his side as he took a male posture of stubbornness and stared into the floor.
Raven gazed at him.
She walked over and joined him in the darkness.
And it was only in the darkness that the sorceress actually hugged his center and leaned her blue head against his frame.
And it was only in the darkness that he brought a titanium hand to his face, shook, and cried.
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Beast Boy walked numbly through the long, metal hallways of the Tower early in the dark hours of the morning.
He passed by a room.
Robin's room.
And the door was cracked open.
He glanced at it.
He hesitated.
He morphed into a wolf and slowly trotted in through the crack.
The changeling gazed in…and narrowed his vision.
And with the aid of his canine eyes, he saw her.
Starfire was curled up in the center of Robin's bed.
Surrounded by the remaining, scant scents of him.
She clutched his tattered cape to her chest and trembled.
She had been there all day….sobbing….
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Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's
first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's
a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So
Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can
stay.
-Robert Frost