Evolution

I knew they were watching.
I could feel it.
I think they knew I could too.
In front of me their eyes would furtively flick my way, catch mine, and drop to the floor.
Repeat and repeat.
To the side the same but behind me the eyes didn’t drop. I could feel them boring into me, transfixed by my wings. Impressive and black. Black like oil, a myriad of purples and blues in a half-hidden sheen only seen if you looked closely and the light revealed it otherwise they were black, deep and dark.

What did they think as they stared?
Did they wonder what it would feel like to soar and glide?
Did they stare in disgust as if watching plague ridden rats devour each other in their madness?
Were they jealous or just full of fear?
They knew I could kill any one of them in under a second or all of them if I wished although that would take a little longer. Or was it hate? Hate that they weren’t chosen?
Hate that they’d become the new rats. Scurrying around at the bottom of the world, locked to the land and its dirty streets, scavenging for scraps. While we rode the sky and soared on its thermals.
That’s evolution for you. Cruel and unsympathetic.
Not for me to question why some of us are blessed while others damned.
They questioned.
They prayed to their Gods for guidance and safety, protection and deliverance. The fools still believed and clung to that belief like limpets to rock.
They saw us as devils, an evolutionary abomination, cursed and damned by everything holy. We saw them as relics, ancient and useless, as worthless as their prayers.
There was no higher power listening to their words.
No saviour ready to embrace them.
We were the Gods.
We were the holy.
We were the future and the hope for this world.