It’s a lonely life, I didn’t think I was going to live this long. I always thought I was going to keel over by the time I was 16. But I’m now 20. Ellys died when she was 14, tragic accident. She was crossing the road. Why would she do such a thing is beyond me.
Her and I left Ma’s nest before we were really even able to. Ma feel off a roof after Farmer Pete scared her. This happened right after Ellys’ first lesson. Ma finished teaching and had to pick up some food, why she would go to Farmer Pete’s roof is beyond me as well. Her and Ellys surprised and frustrated me that way. Now that they are gone, I don’t find myself getting as frustrated, or all up in arms about things anymore, maybe its the solitude of my old age that is getting the better of me.
Anyhow, I had to teach Ellys the ropes after Ma fell. Ellys was not a natural. She was terrified that the wind was going to open up a window in the sky for her to fall through. She should have been a tortoise or a sloth. Nevertheless she learned how to fly and she never once fell through a window in the sky. Once she managed our simple transport, she was the most elegant raven I’d ever laid my eyes on, and that’s saying something because Ma was brilliant and gorgeous as she swooped down and around our nest every night, just before we snored away the moon.
I was a decent flyer, I never thought I was any worse than the average winged creature. I picked up flight with Ma’s first lesson and I’ve since then always preferred using the wind rather than the ground. Let the human’s walk and jostle about, I can circle the sky and protect them if trouble comes from above. But that was a naive thought, I had in my youth and I quickly let that go after Ma’s last encounter with Farmer Pete.
I shouldn’t have been thinking about humans and their safety from the great big sky because they never think about us. They see us as vermin or as pets. If we aren’t in their possession, then the dirt on our worn out feathers wasn’t considered by them as patches from a hard days work, but that of grime spewed over our rabid bodies.
Why do they think of me as a monster? My heart is the size of their ear and their claws have done more damage to me than my talons have scratched on the roof of their house. The cattle think I’m over reacting.
“You should be grateful for being cared for, Farmer Pete is on your side now, rather than the side you must battle to survive.” They clunked along in their heard.
Little did those foolish spotted brains know where they were headed with the caring of Farmer Pete, they were so gracious to receive. I’ve seen where those cattle wind up, something a creature would never let happen to another creature they cared about.
They’re slopping sucks who don’t know the difference from up to down, how could they know? If I were them I would probably be as gracious as them, blind to Farmer Pete’s ways.
But he has clipped my wings and destroyed my nest that I have been building to withstand earth’s sudden attacks of storms since Ma fell. My only source of survival, flight has been snatched away from me. Now I’m a grounded bird, old and tired.
I’m been this way since I was 16. I honestly felt I was going to meet Ma that day when I picked at the scarecrow. Ellys never liked me going near the scarecrow, just because of the fear it instilled in her, but it’s stuffed body never frightened me. Ellys was gone, so her constant nagging had ceased and I needed stronger material for my nest. I began picking and dropping pieces of the scarecrow’s hat, making a pile below on the ground. I couldn’t have been there for very long until I saw Farmer Pete bolt across the field. He was going to shoot me, I thought. But as he approached I didn’t see a shot gun, or even a shovel to whack me away with. What was he going to do? Grab me by my neck and twist me to my death?
Well, that’s what he attempted to do and he was half successful. Why didn’t I fly? Why didn’t I back away? Why didn’t I fall to the ground? I just froze and allowed this man to wrap his claws around me. As he tried twisting my neck in his beefy sweaty hands, he was pulling and snagging my ebony feathers, which seemed to wound me more than the crushing pending death he was forcing on me. I managed to squeal and squeak as each feather got plucked from my body. These sounds scared Farmer Pete as he lost his grip around my body. He fumbled with me as if I were a stray piglet running away, and a piglet would have been more graceful than me in this very moment as I hurled to the ground.
The next thing I opened my eyes to were iron rods of grey. I was confused. I was certain as I dropped to the ground, that if the fall didn’t kill me, surely Farmer Pete would have. He instead locked me in a cage. Was thing going to be funny for him? How did I serve him as pet in a cage?
It would have been better if I had fell like Ma and keeled over. I wouldn’t be the laughing stalk of the entire farm as I hop around in my cage like a rabbit tying to get around. All I think about is my nest now and how it’s enduring the weather without my supervision over it. It probably has fumbled to the ground, a place where no animals of flight belong.
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