The Strange Death of Pigeon Chest....

Pigeon Chest was the most beautiful boy in the history of the world. His bones were a perfectly sculpted marble, wrapped in the most delicate sheath of immaculate pale skin . His hair and eyes were dark and wild, a thin layer of muscle tensed and contracted with his every move like some wild forest creature.

He was adored by girls and boys alike, he made the young feel alive, and filled the aging with a desire to consume him, to feed off of his youth and vitality. Pigeon Chest embraced the attentions of all, and made time for everyone, he lived to be celebrated and was never short of a captive audience, all he needed was two eyes fixed hungrily on him, no matter of age or gender.

Pigeon Chest was a romantic, a real modern dandy, and would only meet his enchanted lovers in one destination, free from the confines of the real world, just outside of the city, untouched by modern hands, far from parents, rules and television screens, a place the local children had whispered of for generations, a haven that had come to be know as called Death Walk Bridge. The story goes that this crumbling old crossing, with its burst of greenery, like the hair for an old mans nose and ears, had once covered a stream that on one June day a teenage bride-to-be, unable to live with the idea of losing her purity had thrown herself into, never to surface.

Pigeon Chest liked this story. No matter what lover held him he would always close his eyes at the point of ecstasy and picture the bride, forever untouched, the barer of a will he could never muster.

His lovers would come with gifts, they would try to impress him with stories of their wealth, intelligence and strength, those that could would offer to take him away to some romantic city and treat him like a prince until the end of time, but Pigeon Chest would not go. Commitment was a crime he thought, and lasting love a made up burden, another shackle on pleasure and joy and he would never allow himself to fall into such a trap.

Then one afternoon Pigeon Chest arrived at Death Walk Bridge, his pockets as empty as his mind, ready to come to life, but this time no suitor was waiting. He stayed there alone for hours, and when darkness fell he sighed deeply and returned home.

Normality returned the following day, and the day after that, and for many days ahead, the gifts and adulation as heavy as always. But then there was another day where he was to wait alone, then within the same week another. These lonesome hours under the bridge were building with each passing month, Pigeon Chest would sit for hours on the stump of some ancient tree, looking into a small pocket mirror, questioning every mark on his pale face. The more he looked the more he found, the tiny lines around his mouth, the darkening skin bellow his eyes, every new blemish was like a hard kick to the ribs. One day he tried to calculate when he had taken his first lover, it was no longer months, but years. It was not a fault of his that he was now alone, it was the fault of time, age was not wisdom, it was decay.

Pigeon Chest stopped going to the bridge. He couldn’t handle the rejection. His days and nights were filled with nothingness. He tried to read, but he hated every hero, hated the romance and full lives of the characters. He would sit in front of the television, but found the perfect bodies off all that crossed the screen to be a mockery of his former glory.

Pigeon Chest came to life in the eyes of others, he needed the mirror of a human eye to see himself clearly, so when those eyes were gone he was as good as dead.

One June day Pigeon Chest went back to Death Walk Bridge, with a dusty half bottle and a short length of rope, he stood on top of the old bricks, and in a moment of calm resignation he stepped forward to meet his bride.