When he wakes, Professor Weary’s sheets are on the floor, kicked off from his thrashing. It’s hard to sleep when it’s this hot. Maybe it’s that cramp that’s woken him. It’s there in his calf—the tightening that comes after long hours crouched on damp jungle ground, waiting for corvids to take their bait of cat food and hard-boiled eggs. The birds need to be caught, tagged, and identified, in order to be studied. One corvid is not like the next. Each is an individual and needs to be understood as an individual. But catching them is very, very difficult. They are rightly wary. They are incredibly smart. They will watch the food for weeks on end, sensing a trap.
They are much smarter than many humans, who’ll plop right in, even when the net is practically in full view. In the middle of the night, that’s when Weary gets most angry with himself. He’s angry because his love and care for Sarah was too little, too late. He should have seen. He should have acted.
He rubs his calf as he lies in bed, and then it starts. A sound—a scritching and scratching. Maybe that’s what woke him. He gets up to see what the noise is, and no, it’s not some bird, some raven messaging with its beak. It’d be a nice touch of the fates, a raven, but no. It’s just the sharp tip of a palm frond, bent from wind, scraping the shutter. He opens the window, yanks and pulls, yanks and pulls, until the frond breaks.
He tosses it, and it falls, falls, falls.
How can he sleep after that? Even though the branch lands with only a soft plink, how can he possibly drift off now?
Limbs break and bones crush. Skulls do.
He comforts himself with thoughts of Raven, who made the world. Not Poe’s annoying bird, but Raven, capital R, honored by so many ancient people—Greeks, Hindus, Natives, Celtics, Norse, more…Raven created the world, but he created humans, too, and through trickery and seduction and honest concern—yes, actual care—provided them with fire and rivers and food, and even taught them how to make love. He created death, but he also carried their souls to the land of the dead.
And sometimes, when something so terrible happened that sadness traveled onward with that soul, Raven would bring the soul back to earth to right the wrong.
How can you not respect that, huh? Seduction, sex, death, retribution? Weary does. Plus, for such a powerful creature, Raven’s misdeeds were so wryly hilarious, and his frailties so humble. People should remember when hearing such tales, when narrowing their eyes at the slick black wings and sharp beak and craftiness, how complicated the situation was. You could judge him for the bad things he did. And, oh, he did do bad things. But he had his reasons. He had good reasons. What a weight Raven carried.
Making things right is a tough business. A haunting business. You worry; you worry a great deal. You hope nothing bad happens, before you can get in and save the day. Nothing else bad, nothing more, because too, too much has already happened. Maybe even Raven had sleepless nights such as this, Weary thinks, as he turns his pillow to the cool side for what feels like the hundredth time. What’re you going to do? Darkness is always the dance floor where anxiety spins with regret until you finally drop from exhaustion.