Greedier in the Feed Machine

Being written, over a measured period. May 14 - May 31 (2012)

And clearly wasn't. Now being written over some other...measures. Antecedent is here.

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When the snake first heard this ruffling, sort of  papery sound, it had thought, "Oh there goes another mouse." It just snuck its head back to its important work (the underbelly), and ignored said rodent.

Some snakes like to crawl very carefully, so it is important to them the disposition of their bellies, cute as that disposition might be. They move slowly, slowly feeling the earth upon which they are moving, hearing the sounds of the forest or jungle. They have a favourite tree or two that they like to sit next to, and they know when or where any big storms will come.

This is a survival mechanic. Once you don't know the position of the big storms, you're pretty much dead. Not much sympathy. There are other snakes, little tiny thin and green ones that can just dart around, biting your face, but we are talking about a huge snake here. Massive in both mass and size.

This snake can afford to let little mice go.

But it wasn't a mouse that had ruffled its feathers (Yes, feathers), was it? Wasn't a little whiskered and whiskeyed furry little brown fellow poking and sniffing where he shouldn't, running its life away in pure nervousness. It didn't have that vibration, that mischief--that je sais quoi, mais...

No, this time it was a chick. It was tapping away, over its skin. The snake slowly uncurled its head. Not that this was a cobra, oh no. No embarrassing flaps. Just the size of the whole snake meant that it had to wait, reposition, wait, reposition, etc. etc.

But it finally saw the chick. Yellow, fluffy. There was a duck once, too, similarly yellow, fluffy, but that one turned out to be a huge mistake. The type of snake we are talking about cannot afford to make two mistakes. So, the snake watched the chick for a long, long time, as it pecked and twittered around.

.

Tweed was having a very hard time explaining to the prostitute why he couldn't bring himself to be fellated by her, when she mentioned something that gave him pause. She had said, "Well then, let me slip into something a little..." and her voice had trailed off (for him), just like that.

She could see that he was suddenly under a lot of stress. "How long have you been living like this?" asked Berlyn.

"Oh," said Tweed, rubbing thumbs together, "it's been about two years."

"You must have family," she tried. "Friends?"

But Tweed only shot straight out of the room, down the stairs and over the turnstile at the station entrance. She was a little pissed off, honestly, as she watched his receding performance from her window, but when she finally turned away and saw what he had left for her, she realized that in fact, Tweed was just a very kind man, who maybe didn't fully know how to take a rest, or relax.

Tweed, already miles away, carefully considered his visage on on the cheap plastic of the train seat. It hadn't just been two years. For him, it had been thousands of years. That is what happens when someone you considered a good friend starts slipping in and out of people. They had called Williams a psychopath, but Tweed wasn't sure.

He hadn't exactly killed anyone yet.