Prophetic Plumage

With a slightly malevolent grin, the crooked man took his perch atop the roof‘s only seat. The small, wooden bench from carvèd oak made a creaking at his doing so. And now he waited.

With nothing better to do, and no sign of untimely disturbance, he crouched. It wouldn’t be long now.

The promise, so fantastical, so magical in nature, rang out inside his brain. No one else knew, no one else cared, so he waited.

He would get his wish, his less-than-humble desire. He would get all he ever wanted. For that, he waited.

The sun had now begun to set on the tail-end of this long foretold day, and a spike of doubt pecked its way into the figure‘s soul. When that pang grew, morphing into an awful talon of dread, he began to feel hope slipping away. As he contemplated climbing down from his rooftop abode, he felt the brush of breezy wings on his back.

“Ah,” he remembered, “an owl never arrives on time.”