Monday, February 24, 2014

2 Esdras, Chapter 11: Birds of a feather

Finally Esdras gets to the good acid: he dreams of an eagle with 12 wings and 3 heads. She covers the earth with her wings and sucks up all the winds and her feathers start growing other feathers. Then she flies somewhere and is declared ruler of earth.

After a while of just sitting on the throne, or wherever she sits, she gets bored and stands up and starts talking to her feathers, telling them they can't all go to sleep at the same time. The voice is coming from her solar plexus. Despite having 12 wings, the eagle only has 8 feathers. One of them rises up and rules the earth. It does that for awhile, then it disappears and then the next feather takes its place.

After the second feather has ruled for some time, it also disappears, but then a voice tells it it's the last of its line and no other feathers will rule for half as long as it has. Then a third feather takes over the throne. This keeps going down the line and suddenly we're on the 12th feather even though literally in verse 11 there are 8, now suddenly it's verse 22 and there are 12. And then suddenly there are 2 more little feathers. And then suddenly the eagle is bald, and now it only has 6 wings.

At this point, whatever sort of trip Esdras is on goes bad and suddenly feathers are moving all over the eagle's body. Then they start reigning again, but poof! They disappear almost as quickly as they take over the crown. Then the heads wake up and start eating the feathers. Only at this point are the people on earth afraid. Then the head disappears and the head on the right eats the one on the left. Then a lion comes and chases the eagle.

The eagle speaks to Esdras and tells him to consider the nightmarish combination of Hieronymous Bosch and Edgar Allen Poe he's just observed and asks him if he isn't the last of the 4 beasts he sent at the end of Revelation. The lion rebukes the eagle for being a shitty ruler and banishes it

2 comments:

  1. I have read the ten chapters of Ezra finding neither birds nor feathers nor anything resembling this blog. Where have I gone wrong?

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  2. Ezra is in the Old Testament. 1 and 2 Esdras, although they are about the same prophet, are part of the Apocrypha.

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