And then there were gargoyles
flash fiction
Stone crouched on the roof of the New York public library, still as a boulder; his eyes staring straight ahead as he observed the bodies marching down the sidewalks like ants. It always amused him that the incarnates on the ground never looked up, never smiled at each other, and never saw the world around them except for the material things they had made.
Gargoyles had been made by church men to protect churches and libraries from evil influences. Their ugly expressions scared the evil spirits that liked to eat from the essences of the embodied. In the past gargoyles were friends and even were invited to nest and to safeguard on the roofs of these buildings. Now they were just legends and myths.
Stone snapped at a shadow that settled down next to him. "Why do you protect these things?" it asked him.
Stone refused to answer. He knew that it was tempting to talk to one of these spirits. They were cunning. He had talked once before and let one go. Now he regretted his action because that escaped one became a demon.
He slowly moved his body towards the shadow so that the embodies would not see him move in their peripheral vision. Sometimes there was one who was more aware than the others.
"They are just sheep," the shadow said. It looked down at them, probably picking out the best soul to eat from.Â
"They are like fine wine." Then it laughed. "Oh you don't drink wine."
Then it was over. Stone slowly crunched the spirit in his mouth and swallowed. It had a fine fresh taste of rotted flesh mired in swamp gas. He waited for the next one to come.Â
There would be more. There always was.
Cyn Bagley © June 2012