The Raven

Chapter One

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    Embracing life means embracing death.
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    For Rae it was a normal day, her feed sitting in the corner and water hanging in a dish in her cage. Her human owner had many birds before her, from larger more exotic birds to smaller and more common. She knew this was trivial, yet continued the act, knowing that in the end her master will be pleased greatly.

    He had a mocking bird named Henry, who made too much noise so he was released by a farm after being rehabilitated, due to a run in with a sharp fence. There was a blue Jay named Jake, which was named by Harold's grandson after they went bird watching and found him with a broken wing. These were notes she kept, due to boredom, and knowing he had a kind soul made it all the better to wait.

    He even adopted a exotic macaw from a shelter a year ago, Bernie. He, however died from old age and lived a long life after being taken care of by Harold's grandson.

    But she had stayed alone, free almost, all these months in her own separate cage. She wasn't a bad birdy as Harold would say, she listened and was trained well. The other birds usually let out high pitched and beautiful sounding chirps and cowls, all besides Rae. She always knew she would never be free.

    Yet today was different.

    She was let out of her cage by Harold early this morning and she sat there before he spoke.

    "You can come out now beautiful, I'm not gonna hurt ya." He spoke hoarsely, his voice clearly tired from age.

    When Rae was out she began a short round about fly around and landed on his large oak desk which made papers flutter about. Before she landed on a paper stating it's importance in big red letters, "DEBT DUE, PAY SOON". Rae could read this, but chose to ignore it. She had also seen the bills and hospital fees that he had to pay after his insurance company didn't accept him for his hospital credibility fees.

    Today was a odd day.

    Harold sat down in his usual chair with a blanket on his lap and the fireplace on a low flame. The new rescue bird was let out as well, as it was only the two of them anyway, being the last birds Harold had before his grandson became older and stopped bird watching with him and moved away.

    Harold laid back in his chair, a recliner which leaned back a little farther than usual, as he stared into the fireplace every now and then. Before going back to writing on a piece of paper in black ink with a beautiful sweeping and scrawling handwriting.

    He stayed that way for for about ten more minutes until they seen him fall asleep. When he woke up suddenly he clutched his chest, to which Rae simply cocked her head sideways, as he began screaming for help, he kept going for the next five minutes until he passed out by the door after struggling to unlocking it.

    Then she heard it, first low and rumbling, but still audible. Her chest and ears were filled with the humming she heard years ago, and she knew what Harold's fate was. It was Harold's time to go, even if he didn't know it. The wait was finally over.

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