Corvus and Crater (excerpt)
from "Blood in the Yolk"--a new collection of bird-themed tales.
Hey everyone! As Sean and I announced last night (in my first-ever Substack live moment!), a new bird-themed collection entitled Blood in the Yolk is leaving the nest on May 13! I’m beyond honored to have a little piece alongside some Substack heavyweights. Here is the stellar lineup:
Ouija Bird by
Palimpsest at Hook Wood by
The Tasteless Death of Lance Green by
A Feathering by
Outnumbed by
Corvus and Crater by Will Boucher
Ravens by
🚨 🦆🚨Pre-orders for e-book and print are LIVE 🚨🦆🚨
Below is the first chunk of my piece Corvus and Crater. Enjoy :)
Corvus and Crater
In the red-walled limbo of sun-sieged lids, he felt his spindly grey mane become a writhing clew of worms, itching to shed follicular yolks and till the cool earth.
The red gave way to atomic light. He scrunched his eyes, winching them open ever so slightly until he'd mustered enough wherewithal to greet the robin egg blank shimmering above.
Squiggly floaters scurried across the blue like kitchen roaches towards peripheral comfort. He lay fuzzed and blank in the deepsick euphoria of open sky, floating upon the fricative breeze-jostle of branches.
The cool air filled his nostrils with sweet pine and retreated his testicles, begrudging the ants in his scrotum-thigh fissure to scurry deep between his buttocks.
Reflex shot his head up. He was surprised he still had a body, even more surprised to find it supine in the dirt, its white asparagus limbs splayed out Virtruvian-like, broiling away under a hateful sun.
He wore his pale blue gown, ratty and pocked with snowflake-esque geometrics. A smile stole his face, cracking his crusty lip schmutz like a glazed donut. His inner ear chimed with Cathy's go-to quip, the one she'd tell every time she'd wipe his ass. You know why they make these things blue?—she'd bring the cold wipe into his crack just as he'd begin his pre-retort inhale—so you can see some sky when you look down!
It was never funny and, likely, not even true. Still, on the bad days, he'd stare at the sky in his chest, imagining a wedge of geese cutting down his abdomen with their sharp V, unzipping him as they migrated south to roost in his pubic hair.
He periscoped around. He lay in a clearing atop a blanket of sun-baked pine needles and soft, bark-colored dirt. The closest trees were a semi-circle of sickly, burned-out pines, perhaps five yards away; tall but lopsided sticks, anorexic and gnarled with little nubs that were once branches. They may have completely circumscribed him, but he couldn't be sure. Twenty yards due east of the trees was a small, stagnant pond. Beyond it, a verdant wall of pines—the menacing, seemingly impenetrable wall of dense evergreen indicative of the Pine Barrens.
Cutting through the topsoil was a slithering, almost regal, smear extending from his bare soles to the far-off pines. Two sets of boot treads bookended the smear, the larger pair a pristine imprint of Kevin's duck-footed gait.
The floaters returned, swarming into two brass blonde youngsters playing in the treads; giggling tykes trying on Daddy's too-big work boots and button down, romping around like shrunk muckety mucks, flapping rail thin arms for balance as they try to walk—
The pressure pain in his bladder scattered his boys to the breeze; his neck muscles relented, returning his crown to the dirt with a dull thump.
Back in the grip of the pitiless blue, his chest boiled with the bastard of nostalgia and anger.
He decided it was time to scream.
He managed a few solid, bloodcurdling yawps, pausing now and again to lift his head, hoping to see a Boy Scout troop sprinting from the tree line.
The screams soon devolved into strange moans, more frication than articulation—hoarse, wheezing streams of ahhhh-colored air punctuated by sudden split tones and rapid-fire coughs.
He stopped when his mouth gushed with the iron taste of popped vessels. He lay panting, ears ringing, bloody spittle clinging like frog eggs to his chapped lips.
He'd pissed himself during the commotion.
He returned to the red, letting the piss summoned gooseflesh prickle him to sleep.
to be continued…
Now that your beak is wet, grab your print or ebook copy of Blood in the Yolk to finish the story and dive into others!
what an ending! Great read Will :)
Sharp