"O son, hark ye to the rainbird's call." Said father to son as the golden light spilled out the fireplace, casting their backs into darkness. "O son, hark ye to the rainbird's call, for when the rainbirds are a-comin' the times are a-changin."
Son's wide eyes soaked in the golden fireplace light and the sound of father's voice.
"O the rainbirds, they's a-comin'. They's call ain't like the call of no other bird. Yer a familiar with the warblings and the cawings and the baying's and the singing's of other birds. The rainbird, he don't sound like that. When the rainbird a comes a callin', you best be knowin' his sound. For he don't warble or caw or bay or sing, on no, he don't warble or caw or bay or sing. He's a makin' a different sound all together. O the rainbird, when he comes a callin' you'll a-know its him."
Father puffed long on a clay pipe, his voice accompanied by the sounds of a thousand night critters a-haunting the outside world with their chitin wings and nightmare fur and ebony eyes, shining through the night. O yes, father puffed long on a clay pipe.
"Son, when the rainbird calls. He drowns out the other birds, ya wont be hearin' no warbling or cawin' or bayin' or singing. When the rainbird a-opens his beak, all ye hear is a marked silence from the other birds. O they is still singing, mind you they is still singing, but that ******* the rainbird, he dun drown them out with his silent call. Son. That is how you know the rainbird's callin'."
The golden light kept a-burning, and the fire was a-crackling as the night was a runnin' over the valleys skies. And father kept a-talkin' and his pipe; he kept a-lightin'.
"Son, that is the sound of the rainbird's call. He don't call much round here in the valley, but when he does, you hear the times are a-changin'. And when the rainbird sings, o son! When the rainbird sings! He BELLOWS! And he SINGS! And the valley will shudder with his song. When he sings, the valley will shudder and the darkness will come, for he be callin' on all dem other rainbird's. And they be comin' and the sky will darken like night and they'll a come, like a cloud, they'll a come. And they's flappin' wings will a-shake and a shudder the valley, and they'll a **** lightning and his brethren, his brothers will a-light down and they be filling the valley with their rain and their **** and the times will be a changin. Oh they be a changing."
Son's ears heard the tale of the rainbird that father told him, son believed the tale father told him. He believed, for the night birds did suddenly fall silent all through the velvet darkness outside the shack, and the air was a markedly different thing from what it was before, and the fire sputtered as the rainbird called. It sputtered…it sputtered…it sputtered.
