Voices from the Point: 7/17/17
An Arrow To Poison The Wing
Kaneko Majime, Owner at Gunpowder Bar
My grandmother would howl with laughter, if she knew the trouble in my home.
There is a sad little creature in our midst: swollen with malignant pride, a tengu nests in a bed of newspaper clippings and public perception. They pluck at the paper scraps to remind themself that they exist and, with a mask modeled after an old Greek myth, play bloody tricks on us so we might keep them in our minds. All this to fill a bottomless pit in their heart — and now we find ourselves encouraging the foolish thing, spurring it on. Such a minor thing, a tengu, and El Asilo obsesses itself over it. A failure of the old wisdom, indeed.
I speak, of course, of Chiron — El Asilo’s latest hellion, obscured in mask and loose clothing as they insist we make moves and entertain their little games — and I speak of them sadly, because when I look at them my heart shatters: how else should a woman feel, when they see a bird writhing on the ground, who sought to heal their starvation by eating themselves nearly to death?
Their letters and actions make me wonder what drove them to this. Makes me wonder what fear and spite turned a wayward soul into a doll adorned with sharp knives. What pushed them to reach out to the world — to us — with bloodstained hands? Do they need solace, or a shoulder to cry on? Are they a child seeking the love they never got, or were they cast aside, with this their only chance to be seen and heard and noticed again? They put in so much effort, I almost hope no one bothers their art.
I suppose that’s the tragedy of tengu, however: they rest their wings among us to have fun, but their tortured origins prompt pain and heartbreak. It drives them to gluttony, makes them foolish, makes them slip up, only to be dashed aside by an adequately clever peasant.
Even now, Chiron’s desires riddle them with blind-spots. They busy themselves with their nest with so much meticulous dedication that they fail to notice the loose arrow poised to fall and pierce their wing. It pains me to see them seek the poison that would cast them into the stars so desperately that they miss the one that could render them forgotten — one more footnote in our history. I can see it all coming so clearly that I almost want to cry out “No, stop, look the other way!”
After all, I hear in my ear the Song that will shoot them from their perch.
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