Jeanie Writes Genre

Part one here. Part two here.


First things first: Amy called her office. She'd gone home for lunch and fell asleep on the couch, she told them. She woke up with a fever and decided to go to bed. They bought it. Work two years without taking a single sick day, they'll buy almost anything. Then she got out of her clothes and into her sushi pajamas and turned back the covers on her bed. She paused before crawling in and looked at the window. There was no point in opening it. No reason in the world. She should go to sleep and just forget everything about the past two days.


"It's stuffy in here," she muttered as she crossed to the window. She heaved it open and poked her head out, searching the sky above and the alley below. A rustle of wings on the fire escape turned out to be yet another pigeon. Amy sighed and went to bed.


She lay with her back to the window and a pillow over her head to block out the daylight and the sound of the pigeons and the alley traffic below. It took a while, but she finally came close to dozing off.


"He fancied you," said a familiar voice.


Amy's eyes snapped open. She threw the pillow off her head and sat up, turning to the window. There sat Ray, grooming himself and pruning his feathers. Amy flopped back on the bed and put the pillow over her face. "Go away," she said. "You're not real."


"Oh, bollocks, not that again," said Ray. "And that's a fine way to behave, innit? You invite me to your home and then act all disgruntled when I show up? I thought you'd be pleased to see me." He sounded hurt.


With a sigh, Amy sat back up. "I am," she admitted, both to herself and to Ray. "I just don't see...." She shook her head. "Nothing makes sense right now."


"What's to make sense of? I came home with you, like we agreed. And a nice looking bloke fancies you. What's wrong with that?"


"What are you talking about?"


"That man. The one you knocked into. I saw the way he looked at you. Been around people long enough to know that look when I see it."


She paused, a fleeting moment of curiosity trying to get the better of her, but she shook it off. "There was no look. Even if there was, which there wasn't, you couldn't have seen it from where you were."


"Sure I could. My vision's the only thing keener than my mind."


Amy snorted and tossed aside the covers. "Men don't give me those kinds of looks. And they don't fancy me."


"Don't see why not. You've got shiny hair and you make a mean sandwich. What more could a fellow want?"


She had to laugh at the simplicity in his reasoning. But then she sobered up. "They don't tend to want the person who got them fired, for one thing. I ruined that guy's life. I ruined a whole bunch of lives."


"What'd you go and do that for?"


"I didn't mean to!"


"Well, that's different then."


"Not to them, it's not." She hugged a pillow to her chest and buried her face in it. "I'm a horrible person."


"Can't understand you with your face in a pillow," said Ray.


Amy raised her head long enough to speak clearly. "I said I'm a horrible person."


"Pish," said Ray. "Don't buy that for a second. So you made a mistake. Granted, can't say I can relate to that, but it don't make you horrible."


"Yes it does," she said, laying her head sideways on the pillow. "It makes me thoughtless and uncaring. I only cared about saving the company money and getting myself a promotion. I didn't even think about the people my report would affect. That's pretty horrible."


"Right," said Ray. "Can't really argue with that."


"Thanks," she grumped.


"Just telling the truth, love. You want comforting dishonesty, go tell your troubles to the pigeons. Or better yet, make some friends of your own kind. Humans aren't exactly famous for being honest."


"Yeah, well, my honest audit report cost a bunch of people their jobs."


"So what's to be done about it?" asked Ray.


Amy sniffed. "I don't know."


"Well you've got a good start on doing nothing at all." She chucked her pillow at him. It hit the wall below the window sill, but even so Ray jumped up in a squawking flurry of feathers. "Attempting to harm a small animal," he tsked as he settled back on the sill. "Not really scoring any points on the 'not horrible' side of the debate."


"Look, I'm just a little confused, okay?" Amy got out of bed and started angrily tugging the covers back into place. "I'm getting advice from a talking bird, a handsome man is allegedly giving me 'looks', and I'm responsible for laying off an entire department!" She stalked toward Ray, who warily backed to the edge of the sill. "These are not things that happen in my world. It's a lot to process, so you could cut me a little slack!" She picked up her pillow and threw it back on the newly made bed.


"Sure," said Ray. "Whatever. No need to get hostile."


Amy screamed. Ray fluffed his feathers as if to protect himself. Without another word, she turned away from him and trudged into the bathroom, where she took two ibuprofen. Then she went into the living room and plopped onto her Laura Ashley sofa, leaned her head back and shut her eyes. She'd never been one to drink. She wasn't a tea-totaler or anything. Alcohol had just never held any appeal for her. But now she thought it might be nice to have a cold, stiff drink. Something that would burn on the way down and make her feel good fast.


Wings fluttered through the room and landed with a thump on the sofa.


"You'd better not use the bathroom on my couch," said Amy, her eyes still closed.


"I'll try to contain myself," came the sardonic reply. Ray sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I said you were horrible. I was only winding you up. Clearly it wasn't the best time for that."


"You think?"


"Said so, didn't I?" The sincerity in his voice gave way to annoyance, but then he recovered. "You're obviously not a bad person. A little addlepated, maybe, bit too stuck in your own head, but--"


"Gee, thanks. This pep talk is really helping."


"But," he went on, "I never would have talked to you if I thought you had a horrible bone in your body. And I'm an excellent judge of character."


Amy opened her eyes and turned to look at Ray. "Thanks," she said, this time without the sarcasm.


"Don't mention it." He hopped up and down on the couch, as if testing the springiness of the cushion. "Nice place you got here. Bit floofy for my taste, but it fits you."


"It does?"


"Yeah. Shouldn't it?"


Amy shrugged. "It's my grandmother's furniture. When she left it to me I always thought I'd get it recovered in something a little more my style, but I never got around to it. I guess it's kind of grown on me."


"Or you've grown into it," said Ray.


Amy blinked, then watched him pace back and forth on the sofa cushion, staring not at him but at the light bulb he'd just lit for her, illuminating her entire life with perfect clarity. "I am become my granny's furniture," she murmured.


"Now don't go getting esoteric on me."


"Oh, God." Amy sat up straight and looked at Ray. "This is my life."


"Yeah. And?"


"And I don't even know how I got here. I mean, I just sort of fell into it, you know? My furniture, my job... I didn't look for my job. I just bumped into a recruiter at a job fair who thought I had the right qualifications. I wasn't even there for the job fair. I was meeting my dad at a boat show in the same building and I got lost."


"Lucky break, sounds like."


"Yeah. I don't know. Was it? I didn't even think about whether I wanted to be an auditor. I just took the job because it was there. Like my apartment. You know that this is the first one I looked at?"


Ray looked around, nodding. "Like I said, nice place."


"No it's not. It's a craphole. The toilet only works right on every other flush, the floors are crooked, the walls are thin, and it's drafty. My heating bill is enormous. But it seemed good enough when I saw it, so I stopped looking. And I just put up with all the crappiness because I don't want the hassle. I never want any hassle. I just want to read and be left alone. That's all I've ever wanted."


"Not a bad goal," said Ray.


"Right. Just look at where it's gotten me. I'm all alone, getting people fired and hallucinating talking birds."


"Just me, really. One bird. And I'm not a hallucination."


"Like you'd tell me if you were." Amy stood up. "That's it. I'm done just accepting things. It's time I started making things happen. I'm going to take control of my life." She marched to the front door and grabbed her keys off their hook.


"Where are you going?" asked Ray.


"Out."


"Out where?"


"I don't know yet. Just out. I never go out. So I'm going out, and I'm not coming back until I have some idea what I want my life to be."


"Right. You want I should tag along?"


"No. And don't take this the wrong way, but I hope when I get back I won't be able to see you anymore."


"Good luck with that. Glad I got to be here for your existential crisis."


"Yeah," she said distractedly. "Me too." She opened the door. "All right, then. Here I go."


"There you go," agreed Ray. "Might I make one last suggestion before you go take charge of your life?"


"What?"


"Just a thought, me not being up on human fashion and all, but you might want to change out of your jammies first."


Amy looked down at her goldfish pajamas and sighed. Then she shut the door and went to get dressed.

***

And that's all she wrote.

Final note: When I wrote this, Amy was very vividly played in my head by Felicia Day. My head was still all full of Chosen. But on re-reading I think that bit of mental casting holds up. By the by, go watch The Guild. It's hee-larious.

©2007-2008 by JM Bauhaus

Labels: Ray, short fiction, unfinished

See Part 1 and notes here.



"So if I try to show you off to people, I suppose you'll just make like that frog and stare at me in silence?"


Amy sat on the edge of a stone planter in the garden in front of her office building. It wasn't as nice as her usual spot--there was no calming fountain, for one thing, and no shade trees to protect her fair skin or her eyes from the sun's harsh glare--but it was still quiet enough this time of day to get in a good hour of reading. At least it had been until the raven showed up. "There you are!" he'd said as he dropped down onto the bush behind her. "Did you forget our appointment? Hope you at least remembered the cucumber."


She had. She'd told herself as she made the sandwich that she simply had a craving for cucumber. That's all. But she'd felt a pang of regret as she settled in the company courtyard. The memory of yesterday had taken on a hazy, dreamlike surreality, and she knew it couldn't be real. But a small, secret part of her wanted it to be real. When the raven appeared, that part of her had breathed a small, secret sigh of relief.


Now, as he swallowed another bite, he shook his tiny head. The sun shone brightly on the spot where he perched, lighting up his feathers with a bluish sheen. "First you call me a crow, then I'm the devil. Now you're comparing me to a frog. Bloody hell."


"No, I just mean, you know, that frog." Amy made jazz hands as she sang, "'Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal....'" The raven blinked at her. Amy looked at her jazz hands and primly folded them in her lap, feeling like an idiot.


The raven gobbled down a slice of cucumber. "Won't be your bloody meal ticket, if that's what you mean." His beak was still full.


Amy smiled, rueful and amused. "Oh, so it's all right for me to be yours?"


The bird had the good grace to look a bit sheepish--if birds could look sheepish. This one certainly came close, at any rate. He swallowed. "Well it's not like I eat that much, is it?"


"Mmm," she said non-committally. It occurred to her, as it had every few minutes since the raven landed, to check and make sure no one was watching them. The coast looked pretty clear. She shook her head at herself. "I don't know why I keep sitting here talking to you. This is really freaky, you know."


"What's freaky?"


"You're freaky. You know, contrary to the evidence, birds don't talk. At least not conversationally. I shouldn't be encouraging it."


The raven scoffed. "That's awfully narrow-minded and speciesist, you ask me."


"Says the racist raven. Tell me again how much you love the pigeons and the crows."


He shook his feathers in a huff. "Well then, you got all the answers, I'll just be keeping my beak shut." With that he tore off another bite and ate in silence.


Amy half turned away from him and opened her book, grateful for the quiet. This was what she should have done in the first place: ignore him until he goes away. Even if he was all in her head. Hell, especially if he was all in her head.


After reading the same sentence over at least five times, she couldn't take it anymore. She needed to hear the raven speak, to prove to her senses that it wasn't a delusion, that she wasn't losing her mind. She shut her book and turned back to him. "Say something profound."


"Squawk," quoth the raven.


Amy rolled her eyes. "Don't be like that. Look, I'm sorry I called you freaky. Now say something. Please?"


The raven picked a mite out of his feathers.


"Fine," said Amy, pretending to go back to her book. "Whatever. It's just as I thought. You can't really talk. I imagined the whole thing." She glanced sideways at him, but so far her reverse psychology had no effect. "Anyway, in the stories, talking ravens are usually ominous and profound. So far you've been neither. If you said something profound, I might believe in you."


She heard an exasperated sigh come from the bird. Then he opened his beak and squawked, "Nevermore."


Amy glared at him. "That's imaginative."


"Oh, sod off," said the raven, bringing a smile to Amy's lips despite his insolent tone. "Do I look like some philosopher or bleeding poet? You want profundity, go read a book."


"I was reading one, until you got here," she reminded him.


"Well there you go, then."


Amy considered the little guy for a moment. It was nearing the end of her lunch hour, and she wondered if she'd ever see him again. Birds were migratory, after all. He might be ready to move on. She wondered if she should invite him to meet her again tomorrow, even though she knew it would be best if she never saw him again. He was simply too controversial. She enjoyed her mundane life, reveled in her status quo. When she wanted something out of the ordinary, she had simply to crack open a book. She didn't need the complications a talking bird would bring. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but what came out instead was, "Would you like to come home with me?"


"Got any cats?"


She blinked. "Um, no."


"You sure? You look like someone who'd have cats."


"What's that supposed to mean?"


"Nothing. Right then, so let's get this straight: I won't be kept in no cage. You keep the window open, and I come and go as I please. Got it?"


"Sure, no problem. I'll take the rest of the day off and show you the way. God knows I've got plenty of vacation and sick time saved up." As she spoke her heart began to race at the prospect of breaking her routine. She felt both excited and anxious. The logic center of her brain went into full protest mode, and the I in her INFP-ness railed against the interruption of her habits. But that small, secret part of her finally spoke up for itself. It had been craving change, had been hungry for adventure and romance and anything out of the ordinary, for the things she'd come to believe that she would only ever read about. That part of her rejoiced.


She gathered her things and stood up to go. Then she looked down at the raven, realizing something. "I don't even know your name."


"Pfft. Names. Why do you humans got to slap ruddy labels on everything? The rest of us got no use for them."


"Well I've got to call you something. I can't just keep calling you 'the raven.'"


"Don't see why not. Not like you've got any other ravens in your life to keep track of."


"Fine," she said. "But it's a mouthful. How about I just call you Ray for short?"


"Ray? Now who's the imaginative one? Hope you didn't exert too many brain cells coming up with that one."


"You'd like something better?"


The bird waved a dismissive wing. "S'all the same to me."


"All right, then." Amy smiled. "Let's go home, Ray."


In a flurry of feathers and wings and without another word, Ray took to the air, circling high overhead. Amy tried to keep her eyes on him as she began the ten block walk to her apartment, still fearful that if she lost sight of him she'd never see him again. As a result she walked straight into a box, knocking it to the ground and causing it to spill all over the sidewalk. She stared down at it in surprise and then, with dawning horror, lifted her gaze to the man who'd been holding the box. "I am so, so sorry," she said, looking away again, one glance having been enough to take in his anger. She dropped to a crouch and began loading the box back up. "I'm an idiot," she said with an embarrassed laugh. "My mother should have named me Grace."


"Do I know you?"


Amy forced her gaze back up and recognized the man as the smoker from the fountain. She suppressed a groan and shook her head. "I don't think so. We've probably just seen each other around." She scooped his things back into his box. He had pictures and coffee mugs, framed certificates, sticky notepads and calendars, stress balls and a Slinky--the kind of things you pack up when you've been asked to clean out your desk. Understanding caused her to pause, and he knelt across from her, clearing his throat.


"Here. I've got it."


"I, um...." said Amy, at a loss. This was why she didn't talk to strangers. She was just so terrible at it. She looked up at the sky, as if Ray might be able to offer some help. But she couldn't see him anywhere, and in a surge of panic she stood up.


"Forget it," said the smoker, also standing and hefting his box. "I know this is awkward. I wouldn't want my getting laid off to ruin your day."


"What?" She looked back at him, momentarily forgetting the raven. "No, I... I just... God, I suck at this sort of thing."


"Yeah. Me too." He stared her down, and she lowered her gaze to his chest, where there dangled an empty ID lanyard that sported the Willis Brothers, Inc. logo. She'd only ever seen him at the fountain and had no idea that he worked for her company. She kept her eyes on the lanyard. He was a handsome man, all blond, blue-eyed and Teutonic, and he had a nice guy look about him despite his current crankiness. She couldn't take the scrutiny of attractive people, especially men. Especially men who might have witnessed her beginning to lose her mind. "You were at the fountain yesterday," he said.


Crap. "Um, yeah," she said. "I usually take my lunch there."


"What was it you were saying to me?"


"Nothing." She said it too quickly, a sure sign of guilt. She grasped for a credible lie. "Oh, you must have heard me on the phone. I had one of those ear-piece thingies. I don't use it often because I'm afraid it makes me look like a raving lunatic." She smiled what she hoped was a knowing smile.


"Right," he said, but his narrowed eyes looked unconvinced. "In any case, I was pretty rude about it. I'm sorry. I was in a pretty bad mood. I'd just found out about... you know." He indicated his box.


Amy waved a dismissive hand. "No problem. It's... yeah. I'm really sorry."


He shrugged. "Forget it. I was getting burned out in that job anyway. That auditor probably did me a favor."


"Auditor?"


"Yeah. Some internal auditor wrote a report that said my whole department was redundant. The axe dropped on all of us. I'm just the first one to get cut."


"Oh," said Amy. Then, "Oh, God."


"Don't worry. I'm sure your job's safe."


She shook her head. "I'm so, so sorry about this."


He shrugged again. "Hey, not like it's your fault or anything." Amy could only offer a nervous laugh in reply. They stood in awkward silence for an eternity. Finally he shifted his box and said, "Well, I'd best get going before they decide to send security to see me off the property."


"I'm sorry," she said again.


"You keep saying that."


"Because I am."


He gave her another sly look, and she thought he must see through her. She braced herself, waiting to be told what a horrible person she was. But all he said was, "Well, that's awfully nice of you." He furrowed his brow a moment, as if thinking of something else to tell her, but then he simply said, "See you around," and started on his way.


Amy watched him go, feeling slightly nauseated. There were ten people in his department. She knew this because she was the one who wrote the report. Ten people would be losing their jobs because of her. She felt like scum. Looking up at the sky, she still saw no sign of the raven. Of course she didn't. He'd been a delusion all along, and she'd just been shocked back to reality. Reality wasn't magical talking birds carrying excitement into her dreary life. Reality was hardworking people getting unfairly laid off because of people who spent all of their time crunching numbers and watching the bottom line. People who were out of touch with the humanity behind the cogs in the machine. People like her.


She briefly considered going back to work, to try and fix this somehow. But she knew it was too late. It would take months for an amendment to her report to get through the channels and have a chance at changing upper management minds. With reality bearing down on her like the world upon Atlas's shoulders, she decided to go home. She needed to lie down for a while.

©2007-2008 by JM Bauhaus

Labels: Ray, short fiction, unfinished

I think I posted this a couple of years (or so) back at Sparkle Motion. I'm posting it here now for archival purposes. I don't know how likely it is to ever be finished, but even so, feedback is welcome.

"Are you going to eat that?"


Amy Catterson lowered her book and looked around. Her bench was empty, save for her and the large black bird perched on the opposite end, a black hole in a galaxy of pigeons sprinkling the square like so much space dust. They outnumbered the lunchtime stragglers at least a dozen to one. Across the fountain a man in rolled up shirtsleeves loosened his tie, stretched his neck and blew a geyser of cigarette smoke up at the sky. Some people clad in business casual trickled out of the diners and coffee shops on their way back to the daily grind. None of them had spoken to her. None of them even seemed to notice her. Not that they ever did.


Half a block down, a panhandler held out his hand to a man wearing the official Casual Friday uniform of Polo and Dockers. Nothing casual about the way the guy hurried away from the homeless man, though. It must have been him that she heard asking for food. Half a block down and she'd heard him plain as day, as though he were sitting right next to her. Weird.


Amy gnawed her bottom lip and flipped a page in her book. It wasn't really that weird, she supposed. In a movie theater halfway across town, one of the huge ones where she could go by herself and not stand out too much, there was one seat in which you could hear every conversation going on in the theater as clearly as if it were happening right beside you. It was her favorite seat, at least until the movie started. Just a few blocks down, too, was a spot where you could stand and speak, and to your own ears it sounded like you were talking into a tin can. To everybody else, meanwhile, your voice sounded perfectly normal. An acoustical anomaly, they called it. That's all it was. An anomaly. Satisfied, Amy scooted down a few inches on her bench so that it wouldn't bother her again. She just wanted to read in peace.


That was why she always took her lunch late, to avoid the usual workaday crowd. She liked the sound the fountain made without a multitude of voices drowning it in chit chat. She also liked the way the sun cleared all the buildings to shine down on the square, filtering through the dogwood trees and Japanese maples that lined the sidewalks to create a dappled, lazy afternoon effect that Amy found relaxing. It smelled fresh here, too, and sounded quiet, almost quiet enough to convince her for an hour that she was out in the countryside and not in the middle of the smog-and-noise-polluted city.


It was a perfect place to sit and read and escape. She'd discovered it about two years ago, a week after starting her internal auditing job, her first real corporate job in her first real corporate downtown setting. Every day at one o'clock, weather permitting, she would take her book and her homemade sandwich (or sometimes soup) and walk three blocks to this very bench to eat and read and pretend that she didn't spend the bulk of her days poring over policy and procedure manuals.


A rustling of feathers at the other end of the bench drew her attention away from her book. "I asked if you're going to eat that."


Amy blinked at the black bird. It had hopped down from the arm of the bench to the seat, and was eyeballing the half of sandwich beside her that she had yet to eat. It sounded for all the world like the question had come from the bird. Amy snerked at the idea and looked around. There was nobody here but the pigeons. And the man across the fountain, still working on his cigarette.


On the bench, the bird puffed up its chest and deflated slowly as though heaving a weary sigh. Then it looked at her. It looked right at her, blinking up at her with its beady little black bird eyes. "Look, don't mean to be pushy," it seemed to say. The voice she heard was male, with a distinct lower class London accent. "It's just that I've flown so far, and I'm bloody exhausted. And I'm hungry enough to make a go at one of those pigeons. Wouldn't consider that cannibalism. Bloody rats with wings, they are. Filthy bastards."


"Um," said Amy. Then she looked over at the smoking man across the fountain, and got it. Ha ha, she thought, her inner voice dripping with irate sarcasm. It is to laugh. As a rule, she didn't talk to people. Not to strangers, not outside of a business setting. Usually, she couldn't think of anything to say, and when she could, she doubted they really wanted to hear it. But the rule sometimes warranted exceptions, and this was one of those times. One in which she had plenty to say, and he had it coming, whether he wanted to hear it or not. She wouldn't be taken for a fool.


"That's a neat trick," Amy called, careful to keep her voice cordial. Her job gave her a lot of practice at staying cordial in the face of irritation.


He took his cigarette out of his mouth and looked around to see who had spoken. Finally his gaze settled on her. "What?" he called back. He didn't sound English. He sounded straight up Sooner born and Sooner bred. He hadn't even bothered to polish the twang out of his voice like most of the other overeducated and corporatized natives around here. Must be part of his act.


"How'd you learn to do that? Throw your voice like that, I mean." He stared at her like she'd started speaking in tongues. "And with a cigarette in your mouth, too. That's impressive."


The man stared at her a moment more. Then he dropped his cigarette on the ground, crushed it under his shoe, and headed back to wherever he belonged. Amy allowed herself a small smirk as she went back to her book, glad to have that nonsense over with and also proud of the way she'd handled it. He'd mistaken her for just another pigeon, but she'd set him straight. He'd have to find another mark on which to practice his act. She reached for her sandwich and got a peck on the back of her hand.


"Hey!" She jerked her hand away and rubbed it, glaring at the bird. It had helped itself to the rest of her lunch while she'd been distracted. She waved her arms at it. "Shoo!"


The bird swallowed a beakful of tuna and looked up at her. "Well that's what you get, innit? I tried asking, didn't I? You're going to be so rude as to ignore me, I'm not going to be so courteous as to ask again."


Amy slowly lowered her arms to her lap. She stared as the bird pecked ravenously at the remains of her sandwich. Eventually she realized that her mouth gaped open, and with a certain amount of effort she managed to shut it. Then she opened it again to say, "Huh."


"What?" the bird--there was nobody it could be but the bird--mumbled, its beak full. "Don't tell me you've never heard of a talking bird."


"Of course I have," snapped Amy. The bird's voice held a certain tone that rankled her out of her shock. She didn't like being condescended to, not even by figments of her imagination. "When I was a little girl I had a budgie that said 'pretty bird' every time it saw a mirror."


The bird snorted. "Hardly the same thing, is it?"


"No. I guess not." Amy bit her lip and thought hard, grasping for a precedent that meant she wasn't losing her mind. "African Grays," she said at last. "I saw a nature special about them once. They're really intelligent. They can even count."


"Pfft. Pea brains, the lot of 'em. Here, I can count. Watch me count pigeons." It seemed to point with its beak as it said, "One pigeon, two pigeons, three pigeons, four pigeons, five fucking billion pigeons, the whole lot of which ought to be exterminated, and I'm already bored with this." It took another bite of her sandwich.


Amy stared and watched it eat. Finally she said, "I don't see how your brain could be much bigger."


"Not bigger," mumbled the bird around a piece of bread crust. "Just more evolved."


"Right." Amy stared some more. Then she looked away from the bird and rubbed her forehead. "Am I really sitting here having a conversation with a crow?"


The bird sputtered, nearly choking on its crust. "Excuse me? A crow? A ruddy corn-fed slack-jaw, is that what you take me for?"


"Sorry," said Amy, feeling genuinely bad for hurting the little thing's feelings. Then she remembered the absurdity of the situation and got over it. "So then, what are you?"


With a sigh, the bird abandoned her sandwich and flitted up to perch on the back of the bench. It strutted back and forth as it spoke. "Note the large, regal stature, if you will. The proud black beak. The tuft of feathers atop my head that resembles the royal crown. I, madam, am nothing less than a pure bred raven. Royal stock, I might add."


"Oh." Amy nodded. "Good for you."


"Bloody right," it said, then muttered, "Crow." It shook its head. "So now we've established that, I s'pose it's not such a shock, me talking to you and all."


Amy offered a nervous giggle, and then looked down at her lap. "It's not a shock," she said. "I can't be shocked by something that's not real. I've obviously fallen asleep and started dreaming. I should probably wake myself up and go back to work." She waited a moment before poking herself in the arm. "Wake up, Amy!"


But the bird kept talking. "Oh, come on! Surely you've read tale of talking ravens. We're all over your literature."


"I have," she admitted. "In stories. Fantasies. Fiction."


The bird harrumphed. "You calling the Bible a work of fiction?"


Amy narrowed her eyes. "I haven't decided yet. There are talking crows in the Bible?"


"Ravens. Sure there are. Ecclesiastes ten verse twenty: 'For a bird of the air shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.' Had to be talking about a raven. Couldn't be nothing else."


"Right." Amy nodded like she always did when people quoted scripture at her.


"'Course, it also has a talking bush and a talking ass, but those are both actually God. They don't count."


"Right," she said again. Then a very frightening thought occurred to her. She leaned closer to the bird and asked, confidentially, "So, you're not, you know... God, are you?"


"Well that's flattering, innit? But my ego's not quite huge enough to let me answer in the affirmative."


She leaned away again, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. "Are you the devil?"


The raven cocked its head to one side. Amy could swear she saw a mischievous glint in its eyes. "Would I admit it if I was? Much more fun to keep you guessing, I'd think."


"Oh God." Amy put her face in her hands.


"Already established you're wrong on that count."


"Shut up! Oh God. Am I losing my mind?"


"I'm no Sigmund Freud, neither," said the bird, "so I wouldn't know. But I'm not God, and I'm not the devil, and I'm not some voice in your head. I'm just me. Not my fault none of my brethren ever saw fit to open their beaks around you before."


Amy let this sink in, trying to draw comfort from it. She lowered her hands and looked at the bird. "So you're telling me that ravens really talk? All of them?"


"Not all. Got a cousin never picked up the knack, but we don't talk about him in mixed company."


"So ravens talk," repeated Amy. "And they're literate, apparently."


"Yeah. Being raised mostly in cathedrals and libraries, that was bound to happen. I'm a library bird, m'self. Though my great-grandfather was bred at the Tower."


"The tower?"


"Yeah. Tower of London?"


"Okay." Amy nodded. Then she clutched her book and stood up. "Well. It's been, um... it's been a real experience. But I've got to get back to work." Nice, safe work, where normalcy ruled and the only talking animals were of the human jackass variety.


"'Course," said the bird. "Thanks for the grub. Don't suppose you'll be back tomorrow with another? I'm quite fond of cucumber."


She would. She always came here. But she shouldn't tell him that. She should hope he'd fly away and she'd never have to think about talking birds again. "Cucumber," she said instead. "Got it."


"Ta," said the raven. "See you then."


"Yeah. See you." As she walked back to her office, Amy mourned the loss of her routine. She was going to have to find somewhere else to take her lunch.

©2007-2008 by JM Bauhaus

Labels: Ray, short fiction, unfinished