The Raven Was Raptured

I’d just learned of the raven’s unusual post-op grogginess when I entered the mummy’s tomb. A neatly wrapped infant and a pair of feet brought to mind correct burial practice for bird-friends. Perhaps the raven’s cousin, many years ago, was face up at the foot of an oak or maple, and perhaps I did a not too bad job with powerful herbs and careful binding very high into the old fellow’s healthier limbs; the raven certainly approved… I was about to describe this to X/5 when an object of interest called more loudly.

The raven and I go way back, breakfast companions of nearly fourteen years. We often walked together remarking on lovely groundcovers or strange turns of wind. You might have heard the raven sneezing from a picnic table in northern Wisconsin or screaming at the sight of an ungodly umbrella.

Two hours after the mummies, I was reading about James and the Jerusalem Church when the raven’s passing was announced. It followed seizures and medication and cardiac arrest and CPR, and it escaped explanation. But the raven told me weeks ago that “life doesn’t last” and winked one moonlit eye. During our quiet chat prior to the surgery, I had chosen to suppress my certainty and call it fear rather than alarm the raven or any other of our neighbors, but the raven threw a telling kiss in spite of my impressive restraint. Rigor mortis occurred within two minutes rather than the usual twenty or so – a great mystery for some perhaps, but to quote the raven, “gotta go.” A city man with jewelry so bright as to obscure both sidewalks ordered me to celebrate this good news. Through the long night which passed between that day and this, I held the raven to my heart until full flight was possible.