Short Story: The Summer Raven

The silence of this summer is deafening. Nobody wants to waste an inch of effort in this grueling weather. The trees are still and the leaves hang their heads in the summer fatigue. After all, a tree cannot stand in its shadows. Below, a tired cow chews its cud — throwaways of last evening’s Eid, which advanced to early summer this year. I know it cannot sift out the rice alone because hungry humans chew all the meat from every bone, leaving their teeth marks on its surface. That, and the plastic covers — I have seen these poor things choking on plastic covers after putting their nose into the cover’s mouth and end up struggling and even choking. If they get past the bones and the plastic, the aroma of yesterday’s biryani is intoxicating, even to the cows.

My neighbors, the usually dainty mynahs are quiet. This summer has come too early, I hear them lament. Their song list is exhausted. From the mating calls to their songs of love, I have listened to them all. They say mynahs don’t sing the same tune twice. Damn, this summer. I am not used to this early morning stillness and silence. Stifling — that is how I feel. No summer breeze, no dance of the leaves, and no mynah song party. The dreary day it is — particularly today.

In case, you are still figuring out who I am — the one sitting on the tree and watching the cud-chewing cow and the silent mynah pair, I am the Raven. They confuse me with the crows who live upstairs. They are my smaller cousins, almost half of my size. They are the cacophonous bunch that you would see often and most of them sport grey necks. More adventurous than me, they raise the heckles of fellow beings — cows, mynahs, pigeons, and of course, you, humans. Hell, I croak while those guys caw.

Now, you would wonder why am I telling you this. Because I am your neighbor. Just peep out of the window, and you will see my house — right at the same level as your window. The large black, shiny bird. I have seen you grimace while looking in my direction. My croak must irritate you. But then, I have seen you cackle and scream as well. I grimace too. That is how we have noticed each other — as raspy, irritating neighbors.

Then, that day comes, when neighbors, that is you and me, have to meet. I see you walk to the window and stare at the tree — my home. I am a little woozy, but I can see you staring at nothing. Between you and me, there is the stifling and silent stillness. I see you and you see nothing — that vacant stare; probably something is going on in your mind. A loss, perhaps? A moment of introspection? I see your spirit in deep squalor. I see the darkness of your spirit on this bright summer day.

Raven and spirits? Read up. I can read you. Have you noticed that we are the wilder cousins of the crows? The crows that you feed with piety during your pitrupaksh rituals ( ancestral worship), and offer me the round morsels of food.

We all love human food. Your wife and you leave a small morsel — I am one of the beneficiaries. I get there if I am around, or else my cousins finish them off. I hear their cackles about the goodness of your hearts…but today — I see the darkness grow.

Your thoughts aren’t pleasant, even to me. I feel sweaty under my bright, silky, black wings ( my armpits), and I don’t like your stare. You consider me as your ancestor. But remember this, I exist as a raven and able to speak to my mind because this story is written by somebody — a human. A human like you, dear neighbor.

Let us look at it this way — I am the same bird as every other fellow creature, except humans. Depending on where you are, and which faith you are born, I become something to you. Like I just said, I could be your ancestor and feed on your benevolent morsels. But, in your faith, I am also the vehicular consort of the God of destiny, Shani — hence, I am to be feared, because I am ill-omened. How can an ancestor be ill-omened? Well, that is a question that humans would not rather answer. Tradition trumps reason. But there are places I am venerated too; I am the Mahakala (Gonpo Jarodonchen), the dwarapala ( the guard) of the Buddha, a Bodhisattva, and in Bhutan, I am the National Bird. Same bird, different perspectives.

Ah, you might wonder, or perhaps even not, why I am staring at you back. We are neighbors, and it is okay to stare and be stared at once in a while. I suppose you don’t even know that I am talking to you; that is the beauty of this monologue. If humans consider ravens as they deem fit, here is how I will now play along. I am a psychopomp if I am talking to humans, and your spirit guardian like I am to you now.

There is something special about us — why I ended up in this tree of all places and why you chose that home, right next to this tree. Destiny? Probability? Coincidence? Call it what you may want, here we are. Neighbors who don’t know that we are neighbors. You see a tree and probably a dark silhouette in the still tree, on this dreary summer afternoon, but I see your blank look and your tears.

So, if I were to talk to you, and make it more interesting for either of us, we need to break this silence. My silent monologue. Your blank stare in my direction, at nothing.

Here is what I will do.

I grip the bottom edges of the window sill tightly with my hands till they turn red, and let out a sigh. There is something about the stillness of that summer afternoon.

I walk away from my computer table, my usual docking point in my home. My computer has been my window to this world for the last few months. I chat with my friends, attend classes, and play chess alone, or with a bot. If I were to immerse myself into that 14-inch screen, I would be busy and out there, in a crowd, with friends, in a classroom, or putting my grey cells to work. Music, movies, and games — all forms of entertainment are within reach through that keypad, screen, and mouse.

I live through a vicarious existence, and a window to the universe. Since an unknown microbe jumped from a bat to a human, the world has been locked in, and I am one of the involuntary prisoners of this disease. My school, swimming pool, chess class, ice cream, salon, and library — the places I visit in my usual, happy routine are a thing of the past. I see life in a rectangle, since the day my father caught this dreaded bug and we have been quarantined for a week.

My father introduced me to the book — ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’ by Anne Frank. The similarities between our lives for the past two months and Anne’s life are becoming more pronounced as our days in quarantine progress. At least she had her sister and that guy Peter, whom she initially disliked and then later loved. I am alone, now trying to connect with Peter — the poor guy who dies in the Mauthausen Summer Camp. I dream of being Peter, in love with Anne, and figuring in her diary which I read repeatedly. If I were Peter, I would have escaped with Anne. Could I have? In this liberated country, we are now prisoners to an unknown microbe. So where will I gather the courage to find my Anne and then escape this concentration camp?

I discovered this story by Ellen Feldman, ‘The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank’. The book starts with the premise that Peter makes a promise to Anne that if he ever gets out he will lead a new life, reinventing himself. He does not promise that he will live with Anne, but he escapes from Europe and the trauma that he has lived in, literally erasing his past and starting a new life in America. Peter escapes the memory of death, the death of a memory — but the past does come back.

If my past comes back to me, would it come in the form of a person or an event? If it came to me as a person, which form would it be?

Now I stand near the window of my bedroom, which is my only view of the world, the real world. The papaya tree, taller than the four-storeyed building I live in, stands right in front of my mirror, obscuring the view of the children’s park (now empty) and the two rows of blocks that line up along the length of the park.

I go back to Anne Frank and Peter Van Sels for a moment and Ellen’s hypothetical oeuvre of Peter’s escapade to America. I don’t want to escape my past, but let it come to me. I don’t know anything beyond my childhood ( I am 16 now, just about Anne’s age) and don’t write journals like Anne. So I permit myself another hypothesis.

What would happen if the past comes to me? And if it appears as a person?

The air is still, and the tree is ramrod straight. The late-morning symphonies of the mynahs are missing, the leaves hang their heads down in fatigue. My mind is blank, stuck in that question as I stare into the stillness of the papaya tree.

I don’t have a past like Anne or Peter. Much until this irksome afternoon, a safe and secure, still and silent life.

There has to be something from my past, something better…

Then it explodes.

The branch, the one right at my eye level bends downward, and the leaves part urgently, but some of them don’t escape the wrath of the explosion — the vehement beats and thrusts of a large black silhouette, the largest I have ever seen, large like a vulture, yet deeper, denser and darker — a raven. It lets out a raspy sound that tears the fabric of silence and its large wings, almost candor-like, flapped sends ripples of energy into the dead silence of the tree.

The mynahs shriek in protest, as the raven puffs its chest and opens its long beaks to emit that raspy sound again. The silence and the stillness come to an end.

As I stand shocked, almost like the mynahs, but behind the luxury of the glass, I realize that the raven was a bird that represents … my ancestors… my past.

I flap my wings vigorously like I always do to shake up myself to readiness before my flights. I can fly like an eagle and scavenge like a crow. I can eat smelly carrion, fresh meat, and bland rice. The human cookings are aromatic and mostly fresh, and I relish the feast. Being an ancestor to humans has its privileges.

The younger leaves part and older ones wither, the branch bends to the thrust of my legs and the flaps of my wings. I am now on a mission — the mission of drawing the young boy’s attention. They talk about the laws of attraction in the universe. People come into our lives for a reason, either to be a blessing or a lesson, and we don’t cross paths with others by coincidence. I believe so — else, why would I be staring at the boy for so long? I have no business in prying in his affairs. Yet, the boy draws my interest. So, it is upon me to express my interest in him.

From being a neighbor to now a self-anointed ancestor, I have a few things to say to the kid. I can croak in my raspy voice, but I would do better following the human way. So, I shall speak up here. If it is the past that connects me, the ancestor, and him, the descendant, he would never remember me. I am from a past that he cannot remember.

So you would ask, dear boy, how many versions of your past are there?

Wait, he is staring at me now. Let me get near him.

I flap my wings and fly to his window sill — close enough to get his undivided attention, and we are divided by the glass in between. Let him feel safe. After all, I am a beast, yet deemed human, and it is he, the human, inside a cage.

So dear boy, do you know that I am only one of your four pasts?

I keep staring at the huge black bird. I have never seen one before — gargantuan and magnificent. It flies right before my window sill, and settles at ease, perching at the cement edge of the outside wall. Close enough, but the furthest it can. Its eyelids gloss over like a misty curtain, but its stare stays on me. A sure, steadfast stare. It is a shiny, glossy, and black velvety creature. Magnificent like the one that I can imagine — the horse — ah, I remember, Black Beauty. The shiny black mane and the bushy tail. A legend. This creature is no less. Perfectly sharp beak, long and magnificent, curved like a Swiss army knife; eyes clear like the moonless night, the feathers perfectly aligned and kept in order, and the perfectly wedge-shaped tail; add that little black-green plume and beard. If there was perfection in black, it was this raven.

This raven. My ancestor. My past. Perfect and blemishlessly black.

Separate by the window glass. I am not scared. Even if the glass is not there, I would not be afraid, I suppose. I don’t have a past, you know. My past is insignificant. How can I relate to you then, dear Raven?

I belong to a time that you can’t recall. I am an ancestor, one of those beyond your memories. There is a history to you, my child. A history that many of us won’t recount. Ordinary lives, that of birds, beasts, and humans are not recounted or documented; and you and I are among them.

The very reason that the descendants worship ancestors as a ritual is to maintain respect for that past that is not particularly extraordinary, but you have to remember with gratitude that you stand on your ancestors’ shoulders. You never question rituals, but just follow them. It is blind respect because if their histories were documented, you could see them in a different light, and wouldn’t be particularly proud of them. But what we miss here, my child, is that there are lessons that we don’t teach you because even our ordinary lives carry valuable lessons that last beyond time. Those are our legacies and that is how we become immortal. But today, you don’t have those lessons in front of you, instead, you worship and feed us — ravens, who are the symbols of those ordinary lives who carried those extraordinary lessons with them when they passed away. So, in that way, we owe you, my child. You may not know that, and your parents may not know that, but I know it.

I wish I could bring those lessons to you, or it may not even be relevant, because of how you see them, but we would know that only when we go through them, don’t we?

Then, there is the other past — the past that is within our memories. They make up for the other three types. These memories are part of the life you live, and I see you live.

I want to come close to you, my child, and sit and listen to your memories — the memories of your young life.

I feel a certain titillation, a sense of familiarity, and even a slow and growing respect for you, dear Raven. Familiar, but unfathomable. I still can’t figure out. But I want to tell you about my little past. The Anne and Peter part, in particular.

Why would Peter tell Anne that he would live a better life if he got out? I have read about her last entry about Peter. She finally concludes that she is not in love with him, but believes she can build a relationship based on friendship and trust. They share a secret, and his winks light a bulb in her, and she wants their conversations to go on forever.

Can I conclude that Peter was in love with Anne? If not, can I be her lover? Her friend? But she has made it clear that Peter was a confidante and a friend. When they were yanked from their hideouts, what would they have told each other? There is no documentation, but we know that he was reading an English book with Anne’s father.

I love English, dear Raven. I don’t know what that book was about. But, imagine for a moment, if Peter had somehow survived, according to Ellen Feldman’s novel, why would he run away to build a life without Anne? That book brings me to these questions.

What about the past in our memories? Do we all behave like the Ellen version of Peter? If I were alive, I would have gone looking for Anne Frank. I am sure about that.

Ah, that is why you were staring at nothing, dear child?

Now I will come to your question. There are three versions of the past everybody wants to carry. The first is the past we remember. Our brains keep the good memories in, baked into those hidden grey matter between our ears. Mostly we remember the good things. Some of us can remember the little things — good and bad — like people, dates, events, and senses like taste, touch, smell, sound, sight, and silence.

Some of us cannot remember many people and events, which is the second form of the past. A past that we cannot remember. Many of us, ordinary people with a dozen worries in our thoughts, will forget the past easily. It is hard to recall unless you have an eidetic memory.

The third form is the past that you want to forget. Trauma, disappointments, failures, and shocking events… they make some of the troubles that move into the horizon of time. We all want to forget that. It is too hard to forget, and in many cases, people cling to the past with regret or grief or feeling vengeful. Regret and anger are the weights you carry today, making your present weak. You can travel light only if you let go of the past. But this form of past is what most people put an effort to remember.

Ravens, crows, and humans have both short-term and long-term memories; we can remember and forget. Our past is a kaleidoscope reminder of our imperfect journeys.

Now, your question, about Peter, Anne, and you, is hypothetical, isn’t it?

I don’t know this version of the past you talk about, Raven. But I have seen how the future comes in and becomes the past. Look at my father aging. His beardless face wore a black beard, and slowly, without any of us noticing, became salt and pepper, and then white over some time. It is as if a white flower started from his chin, grew to his sideburns, and finally, caught up on the sides. Beautiful, white daisy-like growth.

The past, hence, I have seen, flows into the future, Raven. So why can’t Anne and Peter flow into mine?

Am I in love with Anne? It would mean that I am in love with the past, right? A past beyond my memory, but I could connect because I could only read. But if Anne were here, in seclusion like me, and I were like Peter, I would be in irrevocable love with her.

And am I envious of Peter? Yes, and I don’t think great of him if he went on living his life alone, shutting Anne out of his mind, and pursuing that life in America, as Ellen Feldman has written about.

Who would not fall in love with such an intelligent girl, Raven? I would.

I am alone now, jumping between the two rectangles — the screen on my computer and this window — both covered with glass. So, thoughts about Anne and Frank are only fair game, right?

Oh no, no. Never, my child. Never fall in love with the past. Written or imagined. Anne was real. Peter was real. But Ellen Feldman’s story is imaginary.

Dear child, feeling for the real Anne and Peter is fine. Both died under captivity, I understand. You may have feelings for Anne…but she is the past. The irrevocable past and gone. I understand her writings as a sixteen-year-old connect with you, because you are about the same age as she was — they were.

Today, you might find somebody, who you can relate to. Beyond the rectangles, there is a life. A life that is made of real humans — girls of your age. There will be another Anne or a very special person for you. Live your present.

Like Anne and Peter, even I am a relic. I can’t imagine, the ones who are reading this cannot imagine that a raven is speaking to a boy. But, humans have accepted ravens as ancestors, so there is a chance our conversations might happen. But you meeting Anne — my child — is tomfoolery.

Make friends, real ones. You will find your Anne.

I sigh. I cannot tell my little heart, but what you say makes sense, dear Raven. I am not sure if my heart will listen. But, I will find my friends and lovers. Once this quarantine is over, once this dreadful episode is over, I will travel and meet people — real people and make friends. But, will I find my Anne? I don’t know. Till that time, the questions about Anne Frank will linger, and your answers will, too.

I smile at the Raven. Its glossy eyes stay focused on me for a moment. Just then, a drop falls out of nowhere. And another.

The black Raven’s coat glistens. It shakes its head, looking at me once with its tilted head, and then flies away toward the papaya tree.

I am back to my tree and perch comfortably. The trip to the window sill was worth it. I don’t know whether the boy is my descendant or not. If that was imaginary, think about his feelings towards Anne. Think about how he views Peter. Most of us are tangled between people, relationships, rituals, and time.

The rain is picking up meanwhile. The silent, still, stifling moments are now the past. The rains wash away the dullness of the leaves, and the mynahs stir awake, probably getting ready for another late afternoon duet.

I look for the boy. He looks at me once and turns and walks back to the computer. The rectangle beckons, perhaps.

We return to being inevitable neighbors. I am drenched, he is dry. I wish that he finds his real Anne.

THE END

~Ashok Subramanian © 2024