As The Bird Flies

1

1783, a few months after the end of the Revolutionary War.

A forest outside of Boston, Massachusetts.

He walked into flame as if it was a second skin. Like a mother holding her newborn, it embraced him, curling tails wrapping around his throat and arms like a lover's gentle touch. No burns festered on his skin for long, the wounds seeping into flesh that replenished as if it was cancerous, and all he could feel was the warmth surrounding him.

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"A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel it's warmth." - African Proverb.

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Her body lay in the middle of it all, slowly being pulled into the earth. Her throat was sliced in a clean diagonal from her chin to her clavicle, so deep that blood soaked bone peaked through the skin. Her glossy eyes stared at nothing; Her mouth hung open in a final, silent scream. The flames were beginning to lick at her clothing, her skin, her hair, burning it away. He looked at the moon, watching the curling smoke begin to cover the cat's eye.

Burning away what had happened as easily as a fish swims.

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"Selfish people also tend to have victim mindsets... Their actions plant seeds of loneliness; then they cry upon the blossoming." - Steve Maraboli.

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He dropped the crude butcher knife he had used, watching the ash begin to coat it, the flames glad to forever make it obscure, to hide the truth. After all, they loved to eat with wild abandon, and they didn't stop to worry about what it was. He drew himself out of his home, out of the fire, the clean air stinging his lungs as the woods behind him began to burn with more vigor, reaching high into the air and dragging choking black smoke into the sky.

Bones littered his path, cracking under his boots. Some still had the remnants of flesh clinging to them- only what the buzzards hadn't already peeled off. Soon, this entire region would be burned away; Whether it would turn to a blasted heath, or the ash and bones would bring a new, gentle life to it, he did not know. At this point, he had not the forethought to care.

A horse tugged harshly at the restraints she'd been forced to take. The branch she'd been tied to tugged harshly to accommodate her as she pushed back with all four legs, eyeing the fire with an animal's rightful fear. He looked up as he heard the branch begin to splinter, before moving to action, tugging and lashing the creature into submission.

With a quick foot he fled the carbon field on horseback, not bothering to look back.

It was days before any semblance of a town was brought to his attention, his eyes studying Betsy Ross' flag. It had only been a few years since the British had been removed from power in America. He sighed. That was what they deserved for attempting to divide the land between the white and brown, when it could easily all be white.

He moved his hat so it shaded his eyes, the eyes of a devil looking at the people. If he had a tail it would be flicking, as if he was an aggravated feline. 

Ships came to port. A woman screamed, and nobody paid her any heed, since even by the accent of her voice came the idea that she was a nobody. A drunken man slouched over a line, his arms just barely dragging on the ground as he wavered back and forth.

A few of the upper class walked on air, traveling in covered carriages so that the poor would not learn their faces, lest they knew who was dragging them into war after war. A paperboy shouted. An orphan shivered. A homeless man, dead, was covered with a newspaper and later a cloth, left for someone to collect him, or for a hearse to arrive.

In the richer region of the town, where he found house and home, was where he drove too. His horse, exhausted and almost at the point of collapse, was handed to a slave before he strode into his home.

A servant opened the door, telling him the news over the past few days, while he ignored him and searched for his brother.

"South!" he yelled, interrupting the man as he spoke of how the society ladies were throwing a festivity, asking if his wife, whom he did not have, would like to come.

His brother poked his head out of the door to the cellar, looking confused.

"Something wrong?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. America sighed, relaxing for the first time in days.

"You are excused, Jeremiah," America said, and the servant gave a small nod, still confused but not wanting to question anything and risk getting fired, like other past Head Servants. After he disappeared around the corner, the man stepped forward, wrapping his arms around his twin. America squirmed slightly in the grip, before returning the gesture.

South looked around, making sure nobody was coming around the corners, before slipping into the cellar, dragging North in with him.

"I did it," North confessed, his voice almost silent in the darkness. The hands felt tighter around his lower back, "Haudenosaunee is dead."

"I would have done it," he whispered.

"The fire called me."

"The fire called us," South corrected, his voice stern. He would not move on that, and North sighed, accepting it. North reached up, rubbing his neck, brushing the stubble on his cheek with his thumb. All he could see was the South's blue eyes, his pupils blown by the darkness.

"It has been done," was all North replied, "now we move onto the next."

"And the next, and the next."

"Are our orders still complete and total extermination?"

"Yes," the South sighed, drawing him ever closer, "Yankee?"

"Hm?" North only laid his head down on his chest, only half listening.

"When will it be time to kill the next?"

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