The musk scented smell of blood reeked from the willows near my favorite swimming pond, down near the eastern woods.  The smell was so in discordance with the beauty of the place, full of shade, and flowers.   I often imagined that a coven of water nymphs lived there. Now, the sweet cloying smell of a wounded animal  knotted my stomach and closed my throat .

Gagging I searched through the thickets and found a mound of old mouldering tangerine skins.  These were kind of disgusting, but didn’t explain that particular odor.  Then a strange sight met my eyes!  An albatross lay wounded, dying with an arrow in its wing.  I couldn’t have been more surprised had I met up with a Polaris missile in my backyard, this pool was so far from where any albatross should be.

It’s eyes seemed to be two mendicants begging for surcease from…