We didn’t see it descend at first. No, we felt it. A cooling of the air as the sun’s rays took a rest from beating upon our necks, if only for a second. I paused my labor and granted myself a moment of relief after years of toil under that awful sun. Glory to God in the highest: I praised Him for rolling those clouds over us, and I prayed He might do it just once more in my lifetime, so that I might one day feel rest before I die.
The spade felt heavy in my hands as I prepared for the clouds to pass and for my work in the fields to continue. O, endless plains of wheat and barley, how I longed to take the whole of my harvests home with me and prepare a feast for myself; but it was during this thought that the walls of the Manor House and the pointed belltower of the church made themselves known to me from beyond the fields. Those dark, square windows, carved into rich stone, looked down on me in judgment. I closed my eyes and prayed for forgiveness.
Though my stomach cried for something more than toil, I ignored its pleas. I had been taught to resist temptation. I tightened my grip on my spade, and I prayed, and I waited for the clouds to pass and for my work to return.
The clouds did not pass. The air grew colder.
I heard something hit the ground, and I saw that my fellow tiller, standing nearby, had dropped his spade.
“Amis!” I called to him.
Amis’s voice, low and shaken, was difficult to decipher.
“Holy . . .” he said. “O . . . Holy . . .”
His gaze was fixed on the sky. I looked up.
A shadow had spread across the heavens, so large that I could barely see the blue of the sky. Its form resembled that of a bird, but with many more wings than a bird is endowed. Two wings formed a halo around its head. Two others, a modest coverage of its legs. Two more spread out on either side of its body, casting a shadow upon the entire field where we worked. I fixated on the shadow’s enormity; its breadth blocked out the sun and all of its rays. I thought it to be much grander than the Manor House, and much more holy than the church, and had I not been so transfixed by the creature floating above us, I would have prayed to be forgiven for such a blasphemous thought. In my transfixion, I came to a revelation, and I fell to my knees and cowered. The creature was falling.
The whole manor felt the creature hit the fields. The earth rumbled, and I held my head in my hands as I was thrown backwards into the wheat fields. Around me were the high-pitched cries of tillers searching for sanctuary. The wind from the creature’s crash bellowed, its song mixing with the sound of rich stone falling to the ground, those once-infallible walls of the Manor House finally being felled. The bells of the church screamed as they were destroyed, and I prayed my house was still standing but I knew it was not.
It took many long moments for the shaking to stop and for my legs to stand upon solid ground. As I opened my eyes, I saw that the fields had been overtaken by that fallen creature. Its body, towering high above us, was as large as the now-demolished Manor House. Its wings touched every corner of the fields, and all around us, its golden feathers floated, each feather as long as I was tall. I reached my hand out to one floating near me. It was warm to the touch, and it smelled like honey: soft and sweet.
I could not recall the last proper meal I had eaten.
The tillers crowded around the body. Even as it lay there in its death, the creature shone with a glory matched only by the heavens. We hoisted each other up and reached over its towering body to fold away the wings so that we may see the holy figure that lay at the core.
We saw and we began to cry, for it was beautiful.
The creature had the likeness of a human, but it was much too perfect for humanity. Its skin, as smooth as a ceramic bowl, formed a face of perfect proportions, with soft lips slightly agape and shining eyes like glass balls gazing at the sun. Amis reached out to touch the rounded cheek of the being, and his fingers sank into the surface as though he was touching oil. When he removed his hand, the residue that remained looked much like warm honey, and my stomach yearned to collect what was dripping from his fingers.
The creature’s body, much like its wings, was adorned with golden feathers that lay neatly over the muscular curvature of its torso and hips. The feathers wrapped its limbs and chest with a protective tightness that gave way to the down feathers along its stomach—a stomach so round and so, so full. I pressed a hand to my own stomach. It cried.
The creature’s feathers kissed my ankles. Soft, inviting tongues. I was taught to resist temptation but Father, I faltered. I plucked a barb from a feather and placed it in my mouth. I tasted the warmth of freshly baked bread. I indulged in sin thereafter.
My hands ripped at the creature, stuffing handfuls of feathers into my mouth, and my stomach cried tears of joy upon receiving the sweetness of its holy body. Wheat and barley, seasoned with herbs and spices I had only ever imagined the tastes of. Its skin, soft and flowing, dripped juices down my fingers. I lapped them up like a dog. Blood flowed from the chunks of the creature’s body that I had torn away, and I drank it ravenously, for it tasted like wine. I bit at the creature’s neck, sweet as a perfectly ripened grape, and I felt its song sing through my flesh and bones.
“Holy, Holy, Holy,” I cried. The tillers repeated my words as they followed me in devouring the creature.
“Holy, Holy, Holy,” they cried.
We ate our holy meal.
By nightfall, we had carved a home for ourselves in the belly of the creature, a shelter from the outside winds. We would stay there for several cycles of the moon. The Manor Lord and his priest dared not approach the fields where we dwelled; standing at a safe distance near that ruined church, they called us greedy beasts defiling a holy corpse. What right did they have to think that, as though they were not also living on flattened lands as level as the fields we toiled in our entire lives? No; we paid them no mind as we took refuge in the soft shells of the creature’s throat and rib cage. Slowly, we licked the creature clean of its flesh until it was only skin and then bones and then nothing. When the last of it had fallen into our stomachs, we lay in the fields, and we rested.
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