Join the new world

Part VII: Where we listen in on several ravens chatting

Most people in the know consider ravens to be a fairly intelligent and clever animal and, in fact, the raven has the largest brain of any bird species. Sonja had counted on this when she turned Andrew into one. She had counted on his birdbrain being big enough to hold two simple thoughts. The one thing she had overlooked was the third thought and the forth and the fifth; which were, for the record ‘What’s that over there?’ ‘I’ll be back before she even notices’, and another ‘What’s that over there?’

In fact, by the time Sonja noticed Andrew was missing, the newly made raven was eighty-six thoughts away sitting in a tree watching the moonrise with twelve other ravens.

“Nice looking moon tonight,” he commented to the bird that was perched on the branch above him.

“Eh, it’s nice on most nights,” the bird said tilting its head slightly to get a better look at Andrew. “You’re a new one, eh? Where’d you come from then?”

Andrew reached up with his beak and pulled himself up to the higher branch. “I was with a lady. She was making a lot of noise.”

“I have found that most ladies do that,” he replied echoed by a chorus of caws agreeing.

“How’d you end up traveling with a noisy lady?” one of the ravens asked.

Andrew thought for a moment and realized that except for seeing the woman crashing about with the flame snorting pooka, he had no idea where she had come from. Or where he had come from for that matter.

He gave a ravens excuse for a shrug and replied, “Just found her, I suppose.”

“I found a lady once. Flew around her for a while. She gave me food,” one said

“Food is good,” another agreed.

The whole group in the tree agreed that food was good.

They all sat quiet for a moment watching the moon.

“I sorta miss her though,” the raven said. “And not just for the food.”

Andrew thought about it for a while and decided that maybe he too missed his lady, even though she was noisy.

“Why don’t you go find her?” Andrew asked to which the entire unkindness laughed, sending the shrieking sound across the grass.

“You don’t find ladies.”

“Ladies always find you.”

Again, general consensus ran through the tree that made Andrew feel a bit sad. Sitting there, with a great gathering of black-feathered friends, he found that while the company was nice there was a feeling of something missing.

“Well, I am certain my lady will find me,” he finally said, bobbing his head.

“Of course she will.” More head bobbing followed.

But as the moon made is passage through the night sky and the chatter of his new friends diminished he became less sure that she would find him. He wasn’t sure exactly why he had left her, most likely it had to do with something interesting, but he was absolutely convinced that he missed her.

“I think, when the sun comes up, I shall go looking for her. Or at least make enough noise so that she can find me,” he announced.

The raven next to him bobbed his head. “Making noise is a good way to draw their attention.”

“Yes,” another chimed in. “Being creatures of meaningless noise, they are attracted to it as well.”

“Well, then,” Andrew said emphatically. “I shall go and make a large amount of noise and hope that she finds me.”

“Although, we were going to all go looking for shiny things,” one of his new friends said.

“Hmmmm, I do like shiny things,” Andrew replied and as quick as that he moved another forty-seven thoughts farther away from Sonja.