Second Best (Fiction)

Ron Koppelberger

Second Best

The sordid details of the second rate imperfection were the result of knowing obsession and carnage. The second best choice, the poor man’s champion, the gentle seducer in the game of wild destinies and chance, spurs and pointy razor beaks, blood and alabaster feathers. Chuckling, clucking cautions of Rooster will and savage sanguine sashay. The self willed survivor was the second best choice and Lagos Solitare saw gold and piles of cash. The second best choice in Rooster caw and blazing cock fight glory.
He would steal the Rooster from Rico. The cage was dirty and the cement slab around the Rooster cage was slick with droppings. Lagos, in snaky methodology, grabbed the Rooster from it’s prison. In preface to battle, the Rooster screeched and pierced Lagos’s hand with it’s beak. Lagos grimaced and leapt back with the Rooster. Ankle spurs flashing like knives the Rooster slashed at Lagos’s wrist. A spray of crimson pumped in spurts from Lagos’s injured hand. The cement became slippery with Lagos’s lifeblood and he stumbled into an endless pinwheel. Falling, his head thudded against the concrete floor surrounding the cage. As he lay there, his essence pouring into the filth of a greedy ambition and soily Rooster protest, the Rooster clucked and returned to it’s cage, just second best to the intentions of battle.