Damned Ravens. All day they crash up against the milky sky. Now the whole western horizon is bruised with the blue-black of rainless clouds. Ravens are not intelligent. They believe, for example, that we have a second moon, one that floats around us under the surface of the ocean. A stupid idea. And how do you account for their loitering along the highways and pecking at apple cores and the rib cages of smashed deer?
I once knew a kid who thought chips of flint stone were valuable. So he picked up a few from the ground and swallowed them down. He didn’t look any different after eating the rocks. I didn’t know then, and don’t know now, the proper means for measuring a person’s value. Birds, I know. If they sing pretty and have yellow on their wings, they are worth something. A few years later, the same kid got accused of raping a girl. He didn’t rape that girl. I saw him a few times after that and he avoided me when I approached. I felt like a worm wriggling out from a hole in an apple...and he reached for an apple in front of me.
Most of the time, nothing makes sense to me. Why would you accuse someone of rape if you knew they didn’t rape you? Why doesn’t snow smell the same as rain? Snow almost smells like flowers. And If I had a choice to be anything in life, I think I might be one of those plain little birds that mobs ravens and chases them the hell away.
--Mitchell Hegman
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