Get Off My Farm, Punk! **PART-2** Serial Short Story

Get Off My Farm, Punk!
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Quetzalcoatl burst through the fog and slid into Main Street in Flushing, Queens with a jolt of energy he hadn't known since exploding through his mother's birth canal. His feathers were on fire and his serpent head twisted so that his neck appeared to be tied in knots while his face and eyes examined the big city landscape behind him. The tractor beneath his cockatrice-green body puttered to a standstill, blocking traffic in both directions.

Moments before, he had been on the farm where his father had trained him to harvest the best maize and squash among his clan. Confused, he tried to think his way out of this absurd predicament. The cacophany of car horns, industrial machines, and other city noises prevented him from focusing on the problem at hand. How did he get here, and how will he get home again?

Unable to think, he dismounted the tractor, wondering what the hell that contraption was anyways, and stood in the middle the street blowing at the flames emanating from the feathers on his wings. When it dawned on him that his neck was twisted, he craned it until it snapped back into position.

"Yeeeeoww!"

That hurt.

"Hey buddy!" A man in a suit and tie yelled out the window of a yellow Porsche. "When you're done screwing around with your Halloween charades, why don't you get your damned tractor back to the farm you escaped from. You freak!"

Quetzalcoatl contemplated chewing the man's face off, but decided he had better things to tend to, like getting back to the historical epoch from which he came. Whenever that was. Being a cultural deity was hard enough without having to deal with human issues like time, egos, and sun glasses. He inhaled and let loose a gust of oxygen onto both wings, first the left then the right, to put the fires out. That was annoying, he thought to himself.

He glanced both directions down Main Street, then pushed himself past the Porsche and a small sedan driven by a mousy old grandma toward the most beautiful building he could see. When he reached the steps of the Queens Library, he climbed them and stood in front of the glass door contemplating whether he should enter.

Public domain.

He could hear, behind him, the perturbations of a Chinese man with a high-pitched voice. The Mandarin dialect was as foreign as the current landscape, but he could tell the man was upset. He pushed himself through the glass entrance of the library and strolled through the first door he saw. It happened to be the ladies room.

The sound and din of the road died away as the door of the ladies room closed behind Quetzalcoatl. He was surprised to find the huge mirrors along one wall and could not resist preening in front of them. He did look like a god and when he ruffled up his feathers, Yes! just like this - He looked very nice indeed. Then a small woman stepped out of a stall and banging the door shut she stalked purposefully toward the wash basins. She glanced at Quetzalcoatl on her right and muttered "And I thought my mother-in- law was a dragon!" and went on with her ritual of washing hands and brushing hair and so on.

Quetzalcoatl turned to look at her in his "angry god" visage"Young lady. What did you say?"

"Uh! You must have paid a bomb for such a nice suit? Looks like snake skin!"
"First you call me a dragon and now you think I am wearing snake skin! You would have been beheaded if this was Yucatan."
The lady was too busy with her lipstick and replied in the particularly vile New York fashion " Uh. Huh. OK"

This was too much and Quetzalcoatl bristled in anger, small flames leaping over his feathers. The lady was rummaging in her huge purse for something and had not noticed the danger she was in. Not used to being ignored Quetzalcoatl sucked in air to let out a blast to charr the insulting female. Then the ringing started and the sprinklers burst into life with hundreds of tiny jets.

While Quetzalcoatl was stunned by this counter attack, the lady was now cursing shrilly and frantically trying to close her purse. He stepped near her and craned his neck over her head to look at how she had conjured this rain. The lady sensing him near turned clutching her bag to her chest with one hand, jammed a small can of "Fiery Pepper Assault Spray" at his snout with the other. Then noticing the bulk of her opponent, for the first time, towering over her she pressed the nozzle in panic emptying half the can in a long blast .

Quetzalcoatl had not felt such intense sensations in a long time. He ignited spontaneously burning the lady and cracking up the mirrors. He stood swaying in the middle of a circle of charred surfaces with some area still burning, despite the sprinklers and the smoke. The spray had given him a kick- like a triple peg of aged single malt gulped down in haste. Wow! If only this infernal rain would stop! He thought and headed towards back towards the door.

He stepped out and was quickly pushed aside by people wearing yellow jackets rushing towards the ladies room. Quetzalcoatl did not mind this, he was headed towards the sweeping staircase anyway, he wanted to be under the open sky where he would have the wind at his command. The terrace was empty as he made his way around water tanks and solar panels to the highest point- the cell tower. In the gathering dusk he noticed a strange column of white light stretching to the sky, it was towards the east- it's source obscured by a jungle of metal and glass towers.

He felt some memory stir inside him but he could not place it, setting it aside he leapt from the terrace spreading his wings. He willed his color to change to the dull grey monochrome of his surroundings and ignoring all the myriad sounds and images and lights he glided towards the column of light keeping his nostrils pinched and eyes slitted in the face of all the grimy smoke and ash floating in the air.

Quetzalcoatl could feel the aura kilometers away, this was a sacred place; a powerful deity resided here. And somehow it brought the image of his beloved Cihuacoatl to his mind. It was a strange and awesome sight. The towering statue of the lady holding the torch would have impressed even The Great Father himself. The column of light emanated from torch and pierced the sky above.

To be Continued...

The contest: https://steemit.com/fiction/@blockurator/exquisite-corpse-2-get-off-my-farm-punk-a72c9a1a217a2est