Mar’bo stood up. Guided by the sunlight, he passed through his gauzy curtains. A swoosh of sliding glass and his night sweats burned off before Mar’bo leaned along the balcony’s lip.

“Well, well, well, the stork also rises ...”

The voice rose up with such rhythm and force that Mar’bo’s ears were taken captive, and his head bobbed along to the beat. Jizzy’s.

Mar’bo’s shoulders sagged.

Master T called them all his sparrows, till Jizzy had taken the opportunity to freestyle one night, ripping into Mar’bo’s gawky gait and string bean arms too skinny to hold much muscle. A nose too big for his face like a beak.

Not a man, nor boy, but a stork.

Stork -- Jizzy coined the nickname and it singed like a brand.

The pool below was no kidney bean, but edgeless and spanning infinity if you tilted your head right.

Still, it possessed that turquoise shimmer if you screwed with its lights at night. The sun was breaching the sky. Its beams skidding across the water’s surface more excited to ripple across Jizzy’s body than anything else.

Skin like volcanic glass, shadows fled and everything that touched its surface sparked. A body of muscles forged methodically. A display of engineered eroticism. Even his nipple rings, glowed. Regally supine on a lounger, two of the newest sparrows kneaded the meat of Jizzy’s inner thighs. While others of Master T’s flock flitted around for oils, kush and shots, muttering their latest stabs at verse.

Jizzy continued, “Where you be, storky?”

Mar’Bo knew his games and it was too early to battle, but his dream lingered.

And its name came for the first time in his wakeful state and he called down.

“I’ve been to Underburb, Jizzy, under your mamma.”

No howls or whoops coughed up from the other sparrows lounging. Their fingertips stained with resin and ink. They’d all stopped acknowledging Mar’bo weeks ago.

After they detected his block.

Mar’bo had always been the first in and the last out of Master T’s onsite studios.

For a while, some of the flock had claimed Mar’bo didn’t even leave to piss some days. Just filled up the belly of the newbs who brought more Indica and Red Bulls, thirsty for Mar’bo’s magic.

Now they all avoided him. As if Mar’bo’s dry spell was as infectious as Diz MarX’s bussy.

“Underburb?” Jizzy lifted his shades to look up at Mar’bo with a naked eye.

The excited sun, brightened, causing Jizzy to squint, tearing. “Well, wherever that is ... I hope you mined some gold there. Master T swoops down in thirty. He said he needs your track.”