Nevermore

by queenB

"'Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked, upstarting --
'Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'"

Quoth the raven,"Nevermore."

Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven", lines 97-102

I didn't want anything to do with this. I normally stay out of people's dreams. Usually only see the dreamers that wander up to Eve's cave. I really didn't start any of this, and I wouldn't want to, though the guy was asking for it. So it's not my fault I got mixed up in this caper, or at least I don't think it is.

I'm a raven, it's not my place.

The whole mess started a while back, not too long ago, though I guess time is a relative thing here, in the Dreaming. I was with Eve, in the cave, doing me and Eve stuff. Not that we do that much, mind you. Mostly we wait. Occasionally talk to a passerby, but mostly it's just me and Eve, waiting. For what, she's never told me.

She doesn't tell me lots of things.

So I was with Eve and then I wasn't. I was somewhere else, like when someone calls me. But it wasn't Him, but it was like it was Him. When the Boss calls you, you're just there, with Him. Except I wasn't. I was someplace else, think of it as a dream.

There were lots of other ravens there, too. Loads of them. So many the sky was black with them. They were swooping all over the place and cawing up a storm. Something was definitely going on. Those guys were crazy looking for something. And when ravens act like that, it normally means they're out for flesh, for carrion.

I looked out from the tree I was perched on, to try and figure what was what. The place I was in was pretty bleak, some sorta desert, with a few spindly trees spread around. Then, I noticed there was a pattern to them, to everything. It all focused around this one spot and the other ravens, though flying chaotic as hell, were rotating around it in some sorta formation when you looked at them as a whole. And in the middle of all this, pay-dirt.

I got down from my perch to investigate, and some other birds followed me. Must've been time to feed and they were just waiting for someone to make a move. Which, I guess I did, though I wasn't feeling very hungry. A couple others saw them descend and followed, and then a couple others, and some others, until there was no telling what was under that pile of black feathers.

I stood off a piece and looked around, hoping to figure out where I was and wondering how I'd get back home from here. It seemed some of the other ravens were just as confused as I was. So, I picked a fairly friendly looking one and decided to ask a few questions.

"Hey, there."

"Yep."

"My name's Matthew."

"Yep."

"Hey, do you know where we are?"

"Nope."

"Do you know what all the fuss is over?"

"Nope."

"So, why aren't you eating?"

"Like to know what I'm eating."

"Okay, I understand that. You're the finicky type."

"Yep."

Yes, sir. I sure picked a winner. So, I said my good-byes and flew back up to a tree, so I could think. The noise on the ground was getting unbearable. Those birds were screeching something awful, lost in their meal, and I wasn't feeling like whooping it up with them.

Then I saw him.

He was doing this wild kind of dance around the other ravens, though it seemed more like convulsions to me. He was dressed in clothes that were ripped and shredded, hanging from his arms and legs like rags. And he had this wild look in his eye and drool hanging from his cracked lips. He seemed hungrier than the ravens. Definitely odd. And then Loony looked right at me. Seemed to look through me, even. He started running for me, like I was something special with all these other birds around, though I'd wager that to most humans we all seem the same.

When he got to my tree, he started shaking it, screaming, "Damn you! It's all your fault!" over and over.

This guy had definitely lost it.

Just wanting to get away from the freak, I took off for the sky, hoping I wasn't too far from home... and then I was back in Eve's cave, just like that. She didn't seem to hardly notice I was gone, probably thought I'd gone to the palace to see the Boss or something. But I hadn't.

I didn't think much about it, figuring that maybe the Boss had planned to start using me in some lesser nightmares, which were nowhere near the center of the Dreaming, and maybe he was. If it happened again, then I'd raise a stink about it. I don't go for all that interactive bull-shit that happens around the borders. And then it happened again.

Same deal as before. I was hanging out one minute, this time in Fiddler's Green, and the next, I'm in that place again. It started off just like the first time, ravens flying over-head, same old trees, me perched in one of them. Difference was, I saw Loony right off. He was sitting in front of what last time was the main course, and sure enough would be again. He looked about as crazy as the last time I saw him, but he wasn't paying any attention to me, at least not yet.

He just sat there in front of the carcass which was obviously human and was wearing this polka-dot dress. From the get-up and build, I guessed it was a woman, though she was face down and it was hard to see her. From the stench of her, something tells me you wouldn't want to, though to me it smelled like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

After what happened the last time, I stayed up in the tree. Things got a little too crazy for me after the other birds started stuffing themselves, and I wanted to give this situation a little time to breathe, that and I don't want to be anywhere near this guy.

He started speaking to himself, reciting something real poetic that I knew I should've remembered, but I wasn't too keen on school when I was alive, so I didn't. It was real dark sounding. Eve told me later it was a Gothic poet, whatever that means. All I know was that it was spooky, though he was singing it almost like a nursery rhyme, making it sound all weird, and had the word 'raven' in it a lot. Guess that's why we were all here. This guy must've dreamed us here. It's the only thing I can figure that makes sense.

Playing with the corpse's dress, he kept singing that mixed up song with the words not fitting the tune right. Then, he moved on to her body, pulling off dead pieces of flesh here and there. It got real hard not to fly down there and pick the stuff from his fingers, with him tempting me like he was, flashing it around like a burlesque show or something. Loony picked off more and more and it took all I had just to stay put. But something wasn't right there, and I wasn't playing the sucker. I'm amazed that none of the other birds were falling for it. You'd think they'd be all over this wacko. But they weren't.

Then he did the strangest thing. He ripped off the woman's rotting dress and waved it in the air, looking right at me, like I haven't noticed the body or the delicious smell hanging in the air. He started screaming at the top of his lungs, "Hey, bird! Over here!"

And I just kept looking at him, thinking what a crazed-out schizo this guy was. I have never, ever seen a human invite me to eat another one. I wasn't going anywhere.

Hell, if you could believe it, things got worse. He pulled a couple of her fingers off, rolled her over and gouged out an eye and actually started bringing them over to my tree. But I've seen weirder things, so I was still playing it cool. He got to my perch and threw one of the fingers at me, the lunatic actually threw one at me! I just kept looking at him hoping he was gonna wake up soon or the Boss would drag me out of this shit, because I was getting hungry and I didn't want to see what this guy was gonna do if I started munching on his dead pal. Might've decided to wring my neck or something.

He wasn't too happy that I didn't take his bait, so he tossed the eye at me and that got the other birds' attention. They started coming down from the sky, heading for the thrown away bits of corpse and some went straight for the main course. The guy had one finger left and he lobbed it at me real hard, hit me right square on the head, too. Pissed me off big time, but I didn't rightly know what to do about it. Crazy guy with all that energy, he could do some serious damage. So I just stayed put.

Then Loony started yelling at me again.

"You self-righteous bastard! Why won't you eat?! Don't just sit there mocking me! Stupid bird, I didn't do it! I won't listen to you!"

I haven't said a word, mind you, not a blamed thing. And I'll be damned if I was gonna eat anything he threw at me, just because he wanted me to. I've got some dignity, and a stubborn streak a mile-wide.

It got real crazy around my tree, the bastard attracted lots of the dumber birds over there. There was lots of scratching and squawking going on. Those ravens were playing real rough, and I couldn't see the guy because of all the flapping wings, but he was still cursing at me. I got pretty fed-up and took of towards the sky, hoping it was about time for this game to be up, and then I was gone again. But this time it's not home I went to, sure it had to be somebody's home, but it wasn't mine.

It was dark, but was obviously inside, and I was sitting up on a thick, fancy door frame, looking out over this real cluttered room. It was the Waking. I could feel it, all harsh and uncomfortable, not like the cozy haziness of the Dreaming. There was a television on at the other end of the room, all that was on it was garbled snow. And of course, Loony was there. His clothes looked a bit better than in his dream, but his face didn't.

He looked like Hell.

He pulled himself off the couch that he'd been sleeping on. I still couldn't figure out why I was there with him. He must've wanted me there real bad or the Boss must've had something to do with it. Never can tell with Him. Loony must've owed Him money. Ha! There's a thought.

It took him a while to notice me, but when he did, he started ranting on about somebody named Nora and he didn't mean for it to happen this way and if I was going to take him to Hell. Well, I thought he'd fit in real well there, but I didn't tell him that. In fact, I wasn't sure if I should tell him anything. He kept asking me questions, but I didn't think he wanted an answer and didn't know how well he'd take one. A talking raven might freak him out even more. Besides, in his whacked-out head, I was probably already talking.

Eventually, he started explaining things to me, in an almost rational way, and he let me in on all he'd been through. Apparently, he killed this Nora woman a while back. He says he didn't mean to, but she was acting like she was gonna leave him and he couldn't let her and she got real mad and started talking shit, saying she'd slept with his brother. So he started hitting her and hitting her until she wasn't moving anymore and then he started stabbing her until she stopped breathing. Then, not knowing what to do with her body, he cut it up into pieces in his bathtub and then ground them up in the garbage disposal, sending her out with last night's left-overs. But he said he was sorry, that he didn't mean it.

You know what I was thinking at this point? I was thinking how he was buried so high in his own shit he'd gotten used to the smell. You don't do what he did without being covered in it, and I should know.

So Loony kept going on, his voice getting more frantic with each sentence. Soon enough, he started throwing stuff at me: books, drinking glasses, there was a picture frame at some point. I just kept dodging, looking for a way out of the room, but couldn't find anything. So I just glared at him, getting angrier by the second.

Bastard couldn't take much more of what he thought was me tormenting him. But, of course, it was the other way around. All of a sudden, he ran for the kitchen, slammed open a drawer and pulled out this huge butcher knife.

I'll admit, at this point I started getting worried.

I just knew he was gonna aim that thing at me, and he might even be able to hit me with it. I think I remember me cawing like crazy, hoping the Boss would get me outta this one, because I didn't know of a single way to get outta that hell-hole apartment. It was sealed up tight as a vault. I had even thought of just crashing through a window, but there were bars and chain- link on the outside. Loony must've been pretty paranoid and living in the city sure didn't help.

My carrying on got the guy even more riled and he started whimpering on the floor in front of me. Next thing I knew, he was carving on his wrists like it was Thanksgiving and he was the stuffed turkey. First thing I thought was how I could find a way to save this guy's life, if I could even get somebody to help, being shut up in his stuffy apartment like I was, and not having hands to work a phone with to call for help. And then I started wondering, does he even deserve help, does he even want it?

Evil bastard Loony got me thinking. Got me all torn up, wondering if he was worth saving and hating myself for thinking shit like that, especially considering all the fucked up things I ended up doing when I was alive. Made me feel real sorry for thinking all the stuff I had about him, considering how I could've been him, once. And then...

Then I was in the Dreaming. Landed right smack dab in the middle of the Boss's throne room, and He asks me, "So, Matthew, where have you been?"

I couldn't believe it, sometimes He just blows me away. "Is that one of your introspective, double-meaning questions, Boss?"

"Hypothetically speaking?"

Humph. I expected he'd play it that way. So, I threw back at him, "Sure, why not?"

"Yes and no."

"Great. Of course. So, what life's lesson was I supposed to learn this time?"

"Perhaps there is none and many. Perhaps a figment of the imagination is more than a figment. Perhaps everything is a matter of perspective."

"Okay... So, why the big production? Why get me involved?"

"Why not you?"

"So, he woulda killed himself without me? I didn't screw with him any more than he was already doing to himself?"

"Perhaps."

'Perhaps'. I was really starting to hate that word.

"Matthew, the imagination is an unboundless realm. Who is to say what is real? Reality is as confounding as fantasy, the Waking as amorphous as the Dreaming... Perhaps nothing ever truly happens. You still have much to learn."

And with that he dismissed me and I found myself in Eve's cave, wondering what His big sister would think of the situation, if there even was a situation. I told Eve the whole screwy story and she listened like she always does. As far as the Boss's role in it, she said He was just being 'obtuse'. And here I thought He was only being Himself.

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