The Rime of the Four and Twenty

Four of us have died, we think. They're not making any sound. We can
feel their soft, mud-wet bodies clinging to our sides. We're trying to
ignore them. That leaves twenty of us, crammed in here, head to toe,
like twigs in a nest, waiting. We're keeping very quiet. Maybe that
will stop it getting hotter. It's been getting hotter for a while now,
ever since they lidded off the light with this small, thick, sticky sky
that doesn't taste of anything. We're trying not to think of the dead
ones. But they're starting to smell. We think about the air instead,
moving over it, folding it around us, drifting up and down, towards the
sun, or away from it, and the green of our world below, soft leaves
hiding small delights, or dripping raindrops on our heads. Then we have
a panic attack and want to start screaming. Hush! Hush now, my little
ones. No more crying. But there's no air.

Now we're trying to sleep. Sleep come gently to twenty small souls.
Sleep come quickly. Bury us. We don't want to feel any more. We don't
want to be frightened. But there's too many of us. There shouldn't be
so many of us all together. And so little space. And that's not
counting the dead ones. We're not thinking about them. At least they
don't push. But that just makes it worse. We have to remember not to
touch them. We're all squeezed up to one side, away from them. But they
press. Even unmoving, how they press. They press like they've no right
to. And how much room they take up. And how hard they are to get off.
There's glue on them, or something. We almost hate them.

We remember. Cunning cages, sticky lime on twigs, whirling loops that
tighten round the leg and hold, nets - we fell for them all, shrieked
with panic when we couldn't get free; a useless alarm. That's how they
got us. That's how we came to be here, in this closed off wrong place,
where there's no light or air. We miss our green world. We're trying
not to think about it. We should be singing, but we're keeping quiet.
It's less hot now. We're cooling. And something strange has happened to
the sky - it's gone hard and brittle. Pieces of it flake off when we
test it. Don't test it! It feels wrong. The sky shouldn't feel like
this. We can't move through it. It still doesn't taste of
anything.

Now we're moving. We can sense it. We're riding on air. But not in the
way we like. We can't control this. And some of us have been sick.
Still can't see anything. Perhaps if we hide our heads, it will be all
right. We think we've forgotten how to sing. Is this death? No. We can
feel the dead ones. This is something different, something wedged-in,
soft and dry, a half-death, like being unborn. Bang!

What? What's that? That's done it. We've come to rest, striking
something hard, making our heads shake. Hush! Hush, my little ones. No
more crying.

Now we wait.

We wait.

We wait.

What? What's that? Something's happening. Someone's hurting the sky.
It's...breaking up. And something's coming in. Is it the sun? Is it the
sun? There's an edge of light. But hard. And biting. The sun never bit
like this, striking one of our feet off. Ah! It gleams. It holds the
light, but the thing is dark and cold. It never lived. It's anti-life.
It's nothing like the sun.

Hold us. Hold us as we were held in the egg, sealed off and safe,
floating blindly, dreaming. What did we dream of? Was it flying? We
can't remember. We should have stayed there. We should never have come
out. Our fault. We had to tap. Tap, tap! Tap, tap! Curiosity like an
itch. Tap, tap! Crack! The colours nearly killed us. The light. The
air. The SIZE, swallowing us, going on and on, rearing up, now as
physical form, now as huge, empty space. And now the world's gone small
again. But this time it's wrong. This time, there's this cold, blind,
stabbing thing trying to weed us off, one by one. And we're not
tapping, we're trying to hide. And...

And look! Look at the sky! It's breaking up! How it crumbles! And...and
the air's coming in and we're bursting our heads up and gulping the air
and fighting to get out and fighting off the dead ones and squeezing
out our eyes like it's our very first morning, like we're being born,
twenty of us, all at the same time. And what bright lights! And what
strange air! And what vast, shaking laughter! And something...something
coming towards us. What is it? It's huge. It's hideous. It sounds
like...it looks like...it SEES us. WHAT IS IT?

'Oh look,' it says. 'What a dainty dish! And they're singing.'

But we're not singing, we're screaming.