By G.R. Nanda

“Great,” said Father Hawk. “Great.” He looked down and squinted. “But…………..I am great!” he shouted as he looked back up, frowning at the huntsman who hovered placidly in the sky. 

“I-I’m a god. Or I was. I was a god. I could fly all through the universe. I already was great.” 

The huntsman cocked an eyebrow.

“Were you?” he asked. “Was that chance or did you actually do something to make you deserve to be a god?”

Father Hawk was silent. He finally sighed and answered.

“No, yeah. I guess I didn’t do anything to……………deserve being a god.”

“That was at the hands of the universe, wasn’t it?” said the huntsman. “Only the universe is truly great. Greater than you. Greater than me. You were given godhood. You didn’t earn it. That cannot be called great.”

“What you choose to do with what you are given is what makes you great.”

“Yeah? Well!” started Father Hawk. “The godhood given to me is gone! You took it away from me!”

“To teach you a lesson. Your goodhood made you weak. You grew comfortable in your power. You became restless and the lives of your wife and child are paying for it.”

“How do you know these things about me?” said Father Hawk.

“The soul of every animal I kill in my canyons passes into me in its death. I learn about every animal and then give it a safe sanctuary to exist in for all of its toil.”

“You are now in that sanctuary: the ethereal grasslands.”

“But,” started Father Hawk, “I don’t want to be here!”

“I know,” said the huntsman. “You and I know that flowing through your blood and heart and locked into your brain is the yearning for flight into the stars. You were meant to be a god. And you can strive to rightfully claim your godhood and in doing so, prove………….greatness. “

“But look!” said Father Hawk. “I can’t use the powers of god anymore. I can’t go get that flower!” he pointed in the direction of the rock formation and its flower. “I have nothing.”

“Do you?” implored the huntsman. “Do you have legs and arms? Do you have eyes and a brain? You have the gifts of being an animal.” 

“Do not forget that an animal you are!” said the huntsman, pointing at Father Hawk.”And before you can be a great god, you must be a great animal.” 

“Because that’s what you are, aren’t you?” he asked. “An animal.”

“And what kind of god were you before? You were a hawk god. An animal that was a god.”

Father Hawk’s eyes dropped as he let the words sink in. 

“Some of the other animals hated me because I was a god,” said Father Hawk. “In the canyons.”

“So they did,” said the huntsman. “They didn’t want to share their lands with someone who’s lived with so much more than them. There’s nothing you can do about that. What can you do right now?”

“You have lost your godhood, but have you lost your will?”

“I-I-I don’t know,” said Father Hawk.

“Well, you must know and soon or else you’ll be too late to return to godhood and save your wife and child,” said the huntsman.

“If you really care!” said Father Hawk, “why don’t you just give the flower to my wife? You don’t even have to give me godhood! But I can’t bear what I’ve let happen to my wife and my child! That’s the reason why I left  and ended up in your canyons!”

“Well, here’s a start!” said the huntsman who’d started beaming. “Putting someone else before you. And not just any someone. The mother of your child and the child itself. Would you have done that without hard times? If your godhood had not been taken away? If you were still flying through the universe from star to planet to asteroid to star, without a bit of physical harm laid on your feathers, would you have put someone else before your gratification, thrill and escape?”

“I don’t know,” muttered Father Hawk. There was silence for a few seconds.

“Anyway,” said the huntsman, “like I said, the coyote guards the flower that I could once pluck freely. It was a flower that grew in random places, waiting for me to water it and eat and then share its petals with the universe.”

“The eternal coyote was a pup growing on the Misty Moon. He was the only animal bigger than me I’d ever seen. But since he was merely a babe, I let him be. I was actually scared of him. He grew so big on the Moon, with only the Mists to look through, so I let him be. But he was looking over my canyons too. And the bigger he got, the more he needed to eat. The small plants of the Misty Moon weren’t enough. So he spotted my flower and leaped for it, falling into the dark cavern you walked in.”

“Scared he would do harm in my canyons,  I closed off the hole with rocks. I thought he would die in the dark without food or water. But I didn’t know there was a pool below his ledge and glowing crystals to keep him pleased and seeds from the flower to consume.” 

“Those were seeds I was supposed to plant to grow new flowers. I can’t do that anymore and one day, the seeds will run out.”

“I underestimated the coyote and the darkest depths of my canyons. Now, he prowls there, haunting my spirit and mind,” he said, pointing towards the coyote in the distance and his rock formations which were shrouded in darkness. “The deepest and darkest of ourselves can feed our monsters if we don’t intervene. If we do nothing. I learned the hard way.”

“Wait,” said Father Hawk. “You…………..were…………….scared?”

“Why yes!” exclaimed the huntsman, chuckling. “Even I, the eternal huntsman who’s been prowling these canyons for age immemorial, have my own shortcomings. I am powerful, but I am not perfect. I am flawed and like everything and the universe itself, I am always learning.” 

“That is something you have to accept soon because you can’t keep running away from all that plagues you. You can’t run away from your mistakes as you’ve been doing.”

“I am too big to reach into the coyote’s dwelling. The stars and my constellations make me big and give me many views, but even the cosmos have their limitations. Only an animal as small as you can reach in it. I have bequeathed this quest to you because of your mind. While your godly powers are gone, you still have the intellect of a god. You are smart enough to converse with me and to deal with the coyote.”

“So………………….what do you say?” asked the huntsman. “Do you accept the quest for the flower?”

“I want to,” said Father Hawk. “It’s just that I’ve never really done anything like this before. I’ve become so used to running away from my problems that confronting something like the coyote seems……………impossible.”

“It will become possible in your mind as soon as you prove it,” said the huntsman. “Like any challenge, you will learn more about it and yourself as you work on it than if you don’t.”

“You will make mistakes along the way, but learning from them will make you stronger.” Father Hawk pondered everything he heard. The journey of this quest seemed to promise hardships and frightening experiences. But what was the other path? It was being stuck here.

In the grasslands, trapped amongst other animals in the endless fields– fields of the same. Same everything. Same grass stretching on and on. 

The mass of green needles swaying gently smelled fresh and earthly. The gentle breeze wafted the natural scents from all around. 

However, staying in one place against the moving grass, the needles were prickly on Father Hawk. He realized that he had to move with the current or the current would scathe him.

It was time. To take a stand and venture forth for a greater thing. Father Hawk had a wife and child to save, an invading coyote to destroy and a godhood to reclaim. No matter how fresh the air was, if he stayed here too long, he knew he would grow sick of it. If he couldn’t bear the same small terrain of a planet for so long that he had to soar into the cosmos, he knew he wouldn’t be able to bear the same lands of grass for so long.

He had to move and venture to the coyote. 

“I accept the quest,” said Father Hawk. He looked up into the pale eyes outlined in the ghostly apparition of the huntsman with a furrowed, scrunched determination. 

The darkness of night behind the huntsman was fading away to light. The stars were fading and blinking out. The six large stars that made up the huntsman’s body were disappearing alongside the huntsman himself included.

As he faded away, he spoke his final words that morning:

“Venture forth towards the coyote’s rock, travel lightly, but gather your resources and look out for the beady-eyed eagle for she will guide you further.”

And with that, he faded away completely, replaced by the baby blue of the morning sky. 

By G.R. Nanda

Even as he was spinning, Father Hawk could feel his heart sink. He never felt inevitability more than now.

Plummeting in space, he could do nothing as he moved closer and closer to the huntsman.

The huntsman’s legs trailed behind him in a blue haze that melted away into the stars.

He suddenly reached behind him and pulled out a bow that was hanging on his back. He pulled an arrow from a quiver and notched it on the bow in a single quick motion.

The glowing white string of the bow whined with its strain and the bow creaked. In a flash, the arrow shot through, whizzing loudly.

It was a flaming white shooting star that coursed through the cosmos and engulfed Father Hawk in a burning fire.

Everything was white. Father Hawk could not see his body. He could only see white. It was everywhere and everything.

Eventually, Father Hawk gasped as he hit a prickly surface. Looking down at his claws, he could see that what he’d landed on was a patch of tufts of green needles. It was grass and as Father Hawk moved around, pressing his body on different patches of grass and feeling new tufts poke at him, more of the grass revealed itself to him.

Leaning to one direction, patches of green appeared out of the white haze. Leaning to another, green emerged in that direction. Moving elsewhere, patches formed in other areas like fog was lifting away from them.

Blurred edges cleared away to show new patches of grass as Father Hawk inched closer and looked all around him.

He stood up and shook his head and ruffled his feathers, shaking off some dirt and pebbles. He blinked and looked around.

The large meadow was expanding. Rolling fields of grass growing– pushing into the white expanse.

Father Hawk felt an ant scuttle underneath him, pressing the blades of grass and causing him to flinch. 

The ant disappeared into the grass. A breeze passed through, blowing blades of grass to the left, causing them to rustle in a soft musical sound.

From far off were chirping sounds, faint at first and constantly interrupted by the sound of the wind and the rustling grass, but growing ever louder and multiplying.

Grass pressed together and crinkled with the dirt behind Father Hawk. He whirled around and came face to face with a squirrel with beady eyes and a coat of bushy brown fur. Father Hawk cringed and moved backwards, fearing what the squirrel would inflict on him.

But the squirrel did nothing but sit on hind legs, poised while its furry tail arched back,  moving its jaw in a munching motion and boring its big black eyes into Father Hawk’s.

The squirrel was nearly as big as Father Hawk, which was unusual for the god who was so used to being the bigger animal before he entered the great huntsman’s canyons.

The squirrel was even bigger than the rest of the small feral creatures he’d encountered. It was a squirrel bigger than the squirrels of the canyon. This all meant that Father Hawk was even smaller in these grasslands than he was in the canyons.

The squirrel made a soft clicking noise and bared two large teeth and then quickly bounced away, scuttling into the thickness of the grasses in front of Father Hawk before disappearing.

There was more chirping as the breeze died down and a flock of tiny songbirds emerged from the distance, flying high over the grasses and then over Father Hawk’s head.

The grasslands continued to expand ever outwards in the far off distance. Green blurs pushed out. Where there were blurs bordered by a white haze, hazy green patches of grass popped up.

And wherever the grasses expanded, more animals and critters appeared.

Out of the grasses emerged quiet deer poking their antlers into the grass, traveling in small groups to the right and left.

Their tan hides and lean bodies were close enough to be seen in between the thick blades of grass.

More songbirds appeared, chirping musically. They were small and frantic. They were dark and light colored, but with associated splotches, white and dark.

Butterflies popped out of the ground, fluttering with brightly colored wings. They were orange and blue and they were all dotted by black.

All around, the growing grasslands were coming to life and life was just as big if not even bigger than Father Hawk.

The borders of the grasslands were expanding and curiously enough, in the far off distance, rock outcrops formed out of the white haze. 

Dozens of grey and rust-colored rock formations and cliffs appeared, encircling the grasslands far away.

And then, directly in front of Father Hawk, a large slab of grey rock appeared far away and protruded into white haze. A white cloud was passing over its topmost ledge. When it passed, a tree with pink leaves appeared at the top. When Father Hawk looked closely, he saw that it was actually the flower from the wet cave of the canyons. The flower was the size of a huge tree and the rock mound was now the size of a mountain.

It was separated by chunks that jutted out of the sides, just like in the cave. A part of the ledge sticking out from the middle moved.

It was the coyote, a faint blur of grey in the distance, blending into the grey and orange rock.

Father Hawk whirled around. A herd of elk walked together in the grass against the dark horizon. The sun hung in front of the sky over the far off cliffs and rock faces, edging towards the middle of the sky.

Farther down, on the opposite end of the hemisphere, the light blue of the sky made way for a deep velvet and dark blue spotted by the milky splotches of constellations and their pearly white stars.

The same grouping of six stars hung, looming over the walking elk. The more Father Haws looked, the more the pale apparition of the huntsman glowed to life.

Once again, the man with the billowing white locks of hair and the bulging sinewy muscles loomed over him. 

“WELCOME TO THE SANCTUARY OF HEAVENLY ANIMALS!” he thundered.

“Now you are truly an animal of nature. You are no more a god and you do not have god-like powers anymore.”

“You can live here. Or, if you want to return to reality, travel to Coyote’s cliff and return a stolen flower to me.”

“In return you will be given a petal from the flower which you can use to heal your wife and you will be given a seed from the flower to plant a home for your child.”

“When all is done, you will be more than what you came into my canyons as. For you will have shown greatness.”

“And therefore, you will be great.”

By G.R. Nanda

“Fear flooded Father Hawk.”

“He stopped trembling from anger because now he was trembling out of fear.”

“It was like a sharp bar of ice– a long icicle that plummeted on him, piercing him from his head to his gut.”

“His eyes were wide with fear. He stood in one spot, transfixed at the sight of the huntsman who was hovering above him in the sky.”

“There was no escape. These were the huntsman’s lands.”

“His whole life, Fathe Hawk thought that the universe belonged to him– that he was free to roam and see all that he pleased.”

“He thought that he had seen all and therefore he knew all.”

“The more time he spent in these canyons, the more he was realizing that he didn’t know as much as he thought and that he couldn’t see as much as he thought.”

“‘I know that look,’ said the huntsman in his booming voice that shook the canyon walls. ‘It’s the look of fear I see whenever I stand over my prey open for the strike.’ “

“‘But what I wonder is why you are angry. That is not something I see in the animals of these canyons often. The rest of them are too busy being afraid and running away to be angry or to scream at the sky.’”

“‘Well, most of them don’t want to call my attention.’”

“Father Hawk opened his mouth, wanting to shout. Do or say anything defiant. He had to voice his strength. He would not submit.”

“Instead, all that came out was mumbling and moaning.”

“The huntsman frowned.”

“‘Who………are you?’ he asked. ‘What is your story and how does it bring you here in this state?’”

“Trembling, Father Hawk’s feet gave away; he walked backwards slightly and he slipped over smooth stones. He planted his palms on the ground, catching himself. He gulped a large breath of air and scurried to his left. Without looking up, Father Hawk rushed to the wall and its many pits and recesses looming ahead of him.”

“‘Why do you run?’ thundered the huntsman. ‘Fleeing is futile before me!’”

“‘The more you run and run and run and run away–’’

“There was a loud rippling noise, like the shaking and vibrating of twin suns sent across the universe. It was followed by a crash as the sound of a thunderclap emerged, followed by ricocheting and the crumbling of many rock ledges towering high above.”

“Father Hawk flinched and fell on his back in time to see the lasso that was in the huntsman’s hands, extending out over the heavens, licking the rock tops in its wake. As it retracted, it sent rubble raining down the wall above Father Hawk like snow.”

“-the more my hunt advances!” continued the huntsman. “The more you leave me no other choice!”

“Father Hawk found a corner in the wall: dark, crowded and over boulders and rubble leading into a tight cave of darkness.”

“There was another whip, beginning with a vibration and followed by the crack and thundering of broken, crashing rubble.”

“‘You cannot escape!’”

“Father Hawk got caught in the narrow space between pieces of rock, but he clawed at it so hard that it broke off and he scuttled deeper, furiously. All the while, the canyon walls and the rock of the runnel were vibrating furiously.” 

“‘Your size aids you, hawk!’ shoute the huntsman. But just for now! I’m too big to crawl after you, but these are the canyons I’ve known for eons and eons!”

“‘The constellations are ever present and ever-watching. They are my dominion……I am the constellations……………”

“His voice died away in echoes that rebounded far far away. Father Hawk was now deep into the recess of the wall he climbed into.”

“He was panting and he soon became too busy to keep crawling across the jagged rocks. He stopped and his sight blurred. His whole body throbbed and stung with the force of zooming across rough rock.”

“His feathers were torn and bent. His legs were chafed and scratched by the rock. They also trembled. His knees buckled and he lay panting on the floor.”

“As his head lay on the bumpy rock, his feathers became drenched. Father Hawk peered around him and noticed water droplets clinging to the rocks everywhere. He looked up and saw strings of streaming water faintly pouring down rock in the darkness.”

“The water was cool and felt good against him. It made some of the pain lessen.”

“His head was throbbing painfully, but it subsided slowly and slowly. Father Hawk could now hear better. However, his ears still rang with the crashing and breaking rock from outside. And he still heard crashes. He couldn’t tell whether they were echoes of his mind or actual crashes.”

“But he could hear something else now. Something that he could hear more and more with every passing second. It was the trickling and gurgling of water beyond the dark tunnel he was in.”

“There was something else out there. Something………….wetter and………………bigger.” 

“It was behind him, farther down the tunnel. Father Hawk grunted and got on his feet. Fear– fear of the tunnels and fear of what was beyond the tunnel mixed inside of him and created a bursting energy.”

“Curiosity soon joined the mix and Father Hawk soon found himself in a trance where he was stumbling forward, fearful, but controlled by an inevitability that he couldn’t understand.”

“The gurgling became louder. The further down the slope of rocks he went, the more the water streamed downwards until Father Hawk felt like he was walking down a river.” 

“Slivers of light appeared at the edges of streaming water: little white and silver strains. They grew brighter the further down Father Hawk moved.”

“A small circular opening was illuminated out of the lower depths, showing the end of the tunnel to Father Hawk.”

“The light was coming from there, however faintly. A thin beam was coming out of the opening.”

“The beam entered the pool and danced in little slivers wherever there were ripples. Drops of water were falling down from where the beam came.They fell down and made quiet “plops” and rippled outwards in circles. Father Hawk stepped ever closer to the end of the tunnel. He had walked over several steep piles of jagged rock and was now traversing a smoother embankment that was a few feet away from the rock arch.”

“The water was the loudest it had ever been. Father Hawk’s claws were stepping further into the water, submerging his skinny legs in the cold.”

“He puffed out his feathers and held his wings high across his body. He was already moving into something hawks weren’t supposed to move into: water. He might as well make sure his feathers didn’t get wet.”

“Light glimmered across the pool in thinning lines and in even smaller lines across the water in the tunnel. The archway was directly above Father Hawk. Water dropped from its jagged surface and spilled on Father Hawk’s head and wings, slightly wetting his feathers.”

“He immediately squeezed his eyes and puffed his wings in close over his head. Entering through the archway, Father Hawk saw that the cavern was a lot bigger than he had thought before.”

“What more? The beam of light was coming from a pocket in the roof far up above. But where was that light coming from if it was nighttime? Father Hawk didn’t know.”

“A tall mound of rock stuck up out of the water behind the beam of light. There was a ledge that stuck out of the mount around the middle where there were tufts of drenched-looking fur, some leaves, cracked skeletons of tiny creatures and what looked like dried up and chewed pieces of meat.” 

“At the very top of the mound on a smooth and tiny surface, jutting out of the ever thinning rock was a small patch of what looked like dirt. On top of that was a single lonely flower. Even in the darkness, the petals’ bright color shone fiercely.” 

“Father Hawk stopped wading through the water to admire the strangeness of a flower growing deep in the depths of canyons.”

“The flower was thin and looked slightly stooped over.”

“Father Hawk moved closer towards the mount, sloshing through the water, faster than before.”
“The feathers of his bottom quickly drenched and he jumped back, causing bigger ripples in the pool.”

“There was a snarl that sounded from ahead. Father Hawk froze in fear.”

“A dark mass moved out from behind the mound. It was slow and stealthy. Suddenly, it crept forward, paws first, followed by its long, muscly and furry legs. It jumped onto the lower ledge of the mound, pushing a skeleton and its bones off the ledge and revealing itself to be the coyote it was.”

“The bones plopped in the water, causing a small splash.” 

By G.R. Nanda

When the windstorm and its sounds cleared, drumroll and faint chatter joined the noise of the vicinity. 

  Singing voices soon joined the mix. Male and female.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa………………………..”

Nickel sat still. He had become too numb to try moving the egg or breaking it with force. The egg was dark enough to make him drowsy.

The chorus died away and was replaced by the raspy, yet booming voice of what seemed to be an old man.

“The age of the Hawk was an age long ago,

in an age before the past world…….an age before our world.

 The world was endowed by and created by the hawks, their lives and activities defining the expanse that was our early universe. 

From the depths of time and space was formed……………….

 ……………………………………..the egg.”

The speech seemed to be spoken by a man nearby in a loud voice over the sound of ricocheting drums.

 The frenzy of sound was disorienting, bombarding the shell of Nickel’s egg. It reverberated on the ground and vibrated up the shell.

“It was from the depths of time and space that the body of Mother Hawk was impregnated by the all-consuming Father Hawk.”

“The egg was held in the cosmos- in a nest of space and stars for Mother Hawk to sit upon. The shell was almost as dark as the space around it. Where its oval shape was, a pitch-black spot was formed, blocking out the white pearls of stars streaking the galaxy.” 

“The darkness of the shell was so thick– thick enough to be the hard armor for the secrets awaiting inside of the egg.”

“For inside the egg……….were the secrets of life!”

A chorus of gasps, feigning surprise, sounded. It seemed to come from the left and the right of the square.

 The drumming simultaneously slammed down in prolonged beat, followed by its echo and the beginning of many many soft female voices singing in unison in a high falsetto. It was a wail. A strong, structured and uniform wail sounding the revelation of life.

“Life was hidden. Kept away from Father Hawk. Mother Hawk refused to share. To open. She said it was too soon. Life need not have its eggshell cracked, for life was still being nurtured in the womb and nest of space.”

“This………… angered Father Hawk! He could not wait to see his scion.”

“He raged through the cosmos, trying to pry into the nest which was shrouded in secrecy.”

 The drumroll picked up again, becoming louder than ever. It was a thundering racket.

“He pried the best he could, only causing distant stars to explode and planets to collide and burst with his tantrums. It was all in vain, for he was always shunned and his actions never touched the egg.”

“In this time, Mother Hawk and Father Hawk lost their way, becoming angry with each other, for they were trying to undo the actions of the other.”

“Meanwhile, the life inside the egg was roiling and growing. It was an endless void  contained in the egg of beginning. It was a formless entity. Swirling. Morphing. It was gaseous and free moving. It was both nothing and everything. It was both colorless and filled with a platitude of hues so intertwined that it really wasn’t any single hue.”

“The inside of the egg was thrashing against the unmovable hard shell, with its free moving and contradictory domains.”

“It was love. It was hate. It was peace. It was conflict. It was desire. It was disgust. It was anger. It was compassion. It was cruelty. It was sadness. It was happiness. It was beautiful. It was gruesome. It was jealousy. It was appreciation. It was deceit and treachery. It was loyalty. It was the best and worst of Mother and Father Hawk.”

“ It–was–life.”

 “It was once all there.” 

“The secrets of our own existence…………… swirling and bursting without form.”

“Father Hawk wasted away on his own, separated from Mother Hawk. He could not bear to look at her, for he always spotted her swollen womb, Mother Hawk sitting placidly on her nest. Seeing her, he was reminded of her egg and the face of the child inside that he could not see.”

“He thrashed away on his own, angry, bitter– despairing.”

“One day, he sat by himself, trying not to think of his unborn child. No matter how hard he tried, he could not think of anything else. So finally, he gave up and decided to allow his mind to wander to the depth of Mother Hawk’s womb and the space around the egg atop which she sat. The space littered with the stars that would come to illuminate life that was protected by the egg.” 

“He came to silently imagine the egg and the space around it, harboring his child. He suddenly got to thinking of how he could take his wife’s attention away from the egg she so carefully nurtured.”

“He had to find a way to pry in between the space of the womb and the nest of space and stars that Mother Hawk sat upon.”

“Suddenly………………………”

The drums quickened and then abruptly stopped. 

“Fathew Hawk came up with an idea.”

“It was a risky and bold idea.”

Snares began to thud fervently, but softer and quieter than the drumming from before. 

“One that could horribly offend Mother Hawk if she were to see through his motives.”

“Father Hawk planned to seduce Mother Hawk into making love, widening the space between her body and the nest and also loosening her grasp on the egg.”

“He was going to try to penetrate into the space of her womb and in doing so, rock the egg enough that the shell would crack.”

“So, one day, he decided to use his last resort. He decided to do the very thing that he knew Mother Hawk would not be able to resist. The thing that he saved, kept at bay for only the special nights on which love was to be made:

He danced towards Mother Hawk with his feathers puffed out. They pointed out from his chest, nearing Mother Hawk and her nest.”

“Upon seeing him, Mother Hawk immediately loosened her body, letting her womb’s grip on the egg of life lessen.”

“Forgetting all, Mother Hawk joined in Father Hawk’s embrace, partaking in the dance of love.” 

“As Father Hawk penetrated Mother Hawk over and over again, the force of explosions in Mother Hawk’s womb and her nest rocked the egg and crushed its shell.”

“The Big Bang had started!”

Nickel’s heart jolted in his chest and his eyes widened in the darkness of his egg.

The Big Bang. Like the Big Bang from physics used to explain the science of the birth of the universe. 

Except………….

…………the Big Bang was literally two hawk gods banging each other. 

Normally, Nickel would have scoffed and giggled at the obscene absurdity. Now though, he couldn’t help but find himself swept away in the mythology of the two primordial hawks. 

After all, what else was left to believe in?

The question horrified him. 

“The stars, galaxies and planets of the womb and spiraling hawk nest imploded, all the contents shaking and meshing together. The heat made the dark egg shell go from as black as the cosmos to a radiating and glowing red.”

“While Mother Hawk and Father Hawk were caught up in their passion, the egg shell finally shattered.”

A resounding cacophony of scattered drumming sounded, the loudest of all and so loud that Nickel winced at his throbbing eardrums. 

A chorus of low female voices sounded, turning into a falsetto wail. 

“LIFE-WAS……..RELEASED!”

The substance that had been trapped inside of the egg for so long was finally free to stretch and collide with planets and stars that were all imploding and colliding with each other. 

“Life was now a part of the universe.” 

The music of flutes came into being, taking form in a happy harmonizing crescendo with a sprinkling of steady drum beats. 

“It was flowing around and across the universe. Immature. Vulnerable. Underdeveloped. Mother Hawk had wanted to wait for life to grow strong enough to be able to crack its egg shell itself. Now, underdeveloped and with space in the shambles of wrecked starstuff, life could not proliferate. It needed a home. And most importantly, it needed a caretaker to guide it through the development that was supposed to happen in the egg, but now had to occur in the dangerous, consequential reality of the universe.” 

“Mother Hawk was furious that Father Hawk had tricked her into letting go of her egg.” 

“Father Hawk was ashamed of having let his premature offspring, life, loose in a dangerous universe. He could now see that Mother Hawk had been right about their child still needing to develop and grow before awakening from the egg. Seeing life move freely and without form through the universe he wrecked, he was deeply guilty, embarrassed and fearful for his child’s safety.” 

“Life stayed in its soft and gaseous embryonic form, unable to thrive in one place. While it was soft, the universe was flaming and filled with sharp shards of space rock.” 

“Father Hawk begged for forgiveness from Mother Hawk, but she would not have it. Life was now doomed to fail. She screamed that the egg was supposed to allow for life to develop in safety before it could thrive on its own in the scary universe. Life would not be strong enough to exist in the universe before first being strong enough to break through the egg shell.” 

“Life should have been able to take care of itself on its own in the universe. Instead, now it was too weak– infantile, needing a caretaker to nurture it.”

“Mother Hawk, having laid the egg and kept it warm should have been the one with the most knowledge to nurture life.”

“But she was too exhausted from having laid the egg and having watched over it. Life was supposed to break free from the shell, existing independently, giving Mother Hawk her well deserved rest.”

“Now, too weak to offer anything but feeble help, Mother Hawk was wracked with the stresses of fear for her doomed and vulnerable child and anger directed at her husband.”

“Mother Hawk moaned and cried in anguish, sobbing tears out of her beady bird eyes. Whenever Father Hawk tried to console her, she screamed at him in rage.”

“ ‘Leave me alone!’ she said in between sniffles and moans. ‘You brought this upon us and our child! If only you weren’t the only hawk around to be my husband!’” 

“Hurt, Father Hawk left her to wither alone in her withering nest.”

“The nest was only supposed to host the egg and Mother Hawk until the birth of life. The nest was only supposed to last until then. The star stuff that held it together was dissipating. Mother Hawk didn’t want to leave and face the universe and she definitely didn’t want to face Father Hawk, whom she deeply despised for what he had brought upon.”

“Father Hawk felt helpless. He was wracked with guilt and shame, so he roamed the universe, opening his large feathered wings and soaring through the starry heavens and cosmos.”

“He wanted to think in solitude. But most of all, he wanted to escape.”

“He wandered far away, moving in between hurtling asteroids, dodging dying suns and cowering at the fire of wrecked galaxies.”

“He wandered far and wide, never stopping until he happened upon an old huntsman along the ways of a rocky canyon he was exploring. The huntsman was stalking animals amidst a pool of stars encompassing the grey canyons formed out of asteroid rock. He would spring them with his arrows which were tipped at their ends with stars out of his longbow.”

“The huntsman was so successful because the animals often thought the arrows were just far off twinkling stars. That is, until arrows came close enough that the animals could see that they were actually powerful shooting stars. But by then, it was too late.”

“The fiery star-studded arrows were upon them.”

“The huntsman was very sly about the way he moved through the cosmos. He would move quickly from star shape to star shape, standing still in awkward positions so that his body seemed like it was the outlines of stars.”

“Father Hawk had accidentally stumbled upon the man who formed the first constellations.” 

“He had stumbled into a starry canyon much like our own, where there were many different animals hiding out in the vast open spaces, protected by the ceilings of rock walls– made out of ancient asteroids that crashed on this small crusty dwarf planet.”

“The many animals crawling and scuttering through the grey rock were like the animals of the Desolate Plains: frolicking squirrels, stealthy coyotes, frantic turkeys, soaring eagles, trotting sheep and grazing elk.”

“Father Hawk was astounded. Looking from behind a large rock wall, he saw the burly grey-haired huntsman standing over a ledge as his long beard flowed in the breeze, wavering from the outline of stars that made up his figure. Below the ledge was the biggest contradiction Father Hawk had ever seen: a wasteland full of life.”

“Father Hawk moved ever forward to see more of the view below the ledge. His claws accidentally crunched some pebbles.” 

“The huntsman immediately whirled around, his body leaving the shape and disguise of the stars behind him.” 

“Spotting a flock of eagles flying above a cliff pass far below, Father Hawk scuttled behind as quickly as he could and plummeted over the ledge.”

“When he joined the formation of soaring eagles, he spread his wings wide, soaring amongst them into the far reaches of the canyon.” 

“The eagles paid him no mind, zooming into the distance, intent on their flight.”

“They flew through jagged openings in bumpy rock walls and over small streams. They swooped over and under rock when it protruded out of the ground or jutted out into the sky from walls surrounding them.”

“Father Hawk’s heart thumped loudly with fear. He needed to know if he was followed by the huntsman, but he didn’t dare look back.” 

“And just like that, Father Hawk was no longer a god, but yet another animal of the canyons, on the move and facing the possibility of death at the hands of the ever present huntsman.”