The New Parliament

A sharp wind tore down Wall Street and Felix ascended. His barn owl wings cut the crisp air as he sailed by and in between the glass towers. He landed high on a ledge and spied the sidewalk. His keen owl eyes peered through the street lights and straight to the pavement, looking for the slightest signs of movement.

A rat scurried from beneath a pizza box and Felix pounced. He swooped in, extended his razor sharp talons, and captured breakfast. Returning to his perch, Felix sipped the dulcet blood of his prey and then devoured him. Felix waggled, perfecting his well-groomed plumage.

Felix flew out into the night and circled high. He orbited the concrete towers and glided to the top of the city’s highest spire. Felix paused to digest his evening meal. As the plump rat imbued his body with strength, he had no reason to question why this particular rat had two heads and two tails.

When he left the nest a time ago, Felix knew he was different from his brood, his parliament. The other owls displayed an affinity for pairing up and mating for life. But Felix identified more with his solitude. He hated barns and loved the glass of the city. The nights were darker now than they were when he arrived. All those stinky apes who used to scurry about, this way and that, smelling of fear and hate—they were gone now. So were their lights and their noise. Some of their machines remained, strewn upon the ground, but they didn’t move anymore.

After Felix digested his breakfast, he circled through the hot air and approached the entrance of the Wall Street Bank and Trust. As he drew near, he swooped down and snatched a flying piece of newspaper with his talons. Then, he flew through the broken window on the third floor and zoomed through the dark to his nest. Felix crammed the newspaper into the wall of his nook, fortifying the sturdy construction even further. Felix couldn’t read, so he didn’t see bold headline that now lined his home: ARMS TALKS FAIL.

Felix sat in his nest and groomed his feathers. As he arranged his quill, a beam of moonlight shone through the remnants of the broken building he called home. To Felix, the smashed environs were not inadequate.

Felix heard a screech in the distance. He perked up from his nest and flew out into the night. He heard thousands of bugs and rats and vermin screaming in pain. He flew fast toward the commotion.

He cleared the towers and saw fire across the water. The island with the large metal perch burned white hot. It hurt his eyes. On occasion, when Felix had explored Statue Island, he noted how good its rats tasted. The bugs were delicious, too—not as piquant as they were on the mainland. As he picked up speed and flew closer, the heat of the island caused him to bank left and circle about. He perched on Elvis Island and overlooked the blaze.

From his landing place, Felix saw a boat in motion on the water, arcing away from the conflagration. Felix focused his night vision and saw a cloaked figure on the deck of the small tug boat. The figure held a torch. To Felix, ape machines and burning sticks meant trouble. But here, this particular ape seemed to betray its kind.

Ape eyes were among the best tasting delicacies—creamy, yet firm. Felix flew by the cloaked figure and assessed its acuity. He zoomed by and it reacted, crouching into high alert. It was fast.

Felix circled around and landed back on his perch. The cloaked figure turned its boat about and headed towards him. The figure removed its cloak to reveal long crimson, curly locks. She had green eyes, but most night apes with had green glowing eyes. The green eyed apes were better at catching owls, but Felix hadn’t quite figured out why. It didn’t matter because apes couldn’t fly and he had the high ground.

Felix screamed at the cloaked girl and flew at her fast. She ducked, turned upward, and threw something like a stone at Felix. The thing hit Felix just above his left talons. It stung, but Felix shook it off and flew inland, away from the cloaked ape girl.

The mainland air was much cooler. He banked around the towers, into the Bank and Trust, and landed in his nest. His left foot ached. He ran his beak along the aching talon and discovered something attached to it. Felix pecked at the attachment and it fell off with ease. He picked it up with his beak and flung it out of his nest. His talon felt much better. The night came to a close and Felix fell asleep.

The next evening, or, whenever it was that Felix awoke, the air was much colder. His talon no longer hurt, but he did not wake in his nest and he was far from the glass towers and buildings he loved. The air smelled of nothing. His nest was far too clean to be comfortable. He saw lines along the newspapers that formed his roost, but he couldn’t tell that they were the equivalent of ape gibberish.

From above, Felix heard a squawk. He turned his head to look behind him and saw a few nest boxes. They were scattered about the ascending limbs of an unnaturally large oak tree and Felix’s nest rested on the tree’s lowest branch. Felix saw three pairs of owl eyes dart out from the darkness.

Two owls cawed in reply to the call and they all flew to a high limb. There, the three screeched down at Felix and beckoned him to join them. Felix smelled neither fear nor hate in the three gathered above, so he flew up.

Felix landed on a wooden platform at the top of the tree. The three owls, Juliette, Sabrina, and Terrance greeted, him. Juliette’s pale plume welcomed Felix. He loved his solitude, but he thought, for the first time in his life, that he could somehow share his solitude with her. Sabrina and Terrance stood close together and pecked at each other’s feathers. Juliette cawed and the others, including Felix, joined in. The new parliament circled out and around the expanse of the large oak tree and began to hunt the terrain.

From behind a transparisteel window, Alice—the cloaked girl with the long curly crimson locks—watched Felix fly among his new tribe. Alice grabbed Wendy’s hand and they both teared up, a million miles from the dying Earth.