A Fine Black Sky
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Stores Worker was feverish upon his order, occasionally catching the eye of the Vigilant, who must have known such operations went by, because it was within the Stores Worker’s ability to skim a little from the top of the overabundant stores the South Tower collected.
It would be ever thus that, upon the turn of a month, the old stock would be rotated, so that the useless and unusable cornucopia of crop would be destroyed, when it could have been evenly distributed amongst the poor and needy - the Aberrants. The crawe bird, from its mantle, watched as the Stores Worker waited for the next Chesnik, who dutifully presented her bowl, to which the Stores Worker filled it as instructed, while below the bowl, the Chesnik held a small bag, to take the overflow of the bowl, intentionally overfilled, one might observe.
But the crawe bird cared not for motivation, and it simply watched, avidly, for its opportunity.
The next Chesnik came, then the next. It was upon the convenient conveyance of produce that the Stores Worker offended his superiors. But no one ever spoke of it, even though all knew it was happening. One for the Tower, one for the pocket. It was a common axiom from the time of their Fathers, and their Father’s Fathers. It became the skill of the Worker to manipulate the figures, massage the accounts, and pass the problem to the receivers of blame, namely the Cooks in the kitchens above. But even as the crawe bird swooped to take the top few grains from the barrel, another passing Worker shooed the bird, causing it to elevate, up to the bellows, where the lungs of the Tower were operated, pushing the clean air up, even as it conveyed the dirty air out.
There were the Bellow Boys, exhausted and frustrated at their lot. The crawe bird flew past the first few Bellow Boys and up to the Bellow Officer, who was dealing with yet another insurrection amongst the most defeated of Boys, more mature than the others and bent on justice. With stick and stern word, the Boy’s insurrection soon subsided, even as the younger, more fearful Boys carried on regardless. This was a common theme about the four Bellows that made up each Tower, two in turn inhaling, while the other pair exhaled. The chamber into which the crawe bird entered went up beyond sight in the smoky heights of the Tower, acting as a continuous lung of travelling air, lifting the crawe bird up on an actionless gust.
And the crawe bird would ever thus have travelled above, if not for the sudden inescapable odour emanating from the vent that entered the kitchens. The crawe bird then alighted the gust, squeezing itself through the small opening, until it came fussily into the air above the Cooks, its feathers showering like a snowdrift of down. Agitated as it exited the vent, the crawe bird perched in safety upon the high plaster coving.
This, however, only incensed the Cooks, who were livid at the rodent of the outside sky about their preparations, as even now the crawe bird eyed with one then the other black bauble within its cranium a prize beyond compare, and the caw of delight emitted from its beak, calling to all, of its presence and intention.
The Chesniks related an attentive fervour to the presence of the crawe bird, by calling to it, to leave the prepared components of the dinner in headlong motion and perpetual passage, while attending to the preparative work with a large covering cloth, even as the erratic crawe bird’s feathers fell onto and into the preparations, whereupon the crawe bird spied a bitular beetle, which was too distant and within the melee, so the crawe bird was forced to leave the creature alone, and take flight, causing much consternation amongst the Workers, Chesniks and Attendants therein. Eventually, and with much agitated cawing, guided by the brush and pole, it flew out of the vent it had arrived by, back past the Bellow Boys and the Bellow Officer, past the Stores Worker, out of the window and back over the City with its comforting empty darkness of anonymity beyond.
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