THE LAUGHING CROW: A CRYPTIC Anthology

Between Servings

The kitchen is scorching. Sweat collects and hovers along eyebrows and drip down temples of Chefs and Cook, whose faces will remain forever imprinted in my memory.

I never forget a face.

Their minds are focused on baking meat pies. Unfilled meat pies. They've worked for hours, sifting flour, kneading dough ... only to bake a few vacant shells.

However, this is no riddle to me.

I've sat many a day, waiting and watching, and slightly swinging in the iron cage in the corner of a blistering bakery. Sentenced to silence as a piece of twine tie the tip of my beak closed in a nice little bow.

Yes, I said beak.

In the past, I possessed a mouth that came along with a nice, fat tongue and crooked teeth. This was in a time when I was not called "That Damned Thing" by a murder of cooks whose faces will remain forever imprinted in my memory. I was not referred to as Blackbird then, either, but was called Man. Wilfred to be exact.

The bushy brown beard Wilfred kept was his signature. Those coarse, brittle strands were what was left of who he was after being labeled "crazed." I remember searching the world as Wilfred, to find specific ingredients that would act as the most nourishing facial hair moisturizer ever created. Facial hair was an upmost importance at that time. I traveled far, searching high and low for a bit of juniper paste from the berries of the juniper bush, and liquid sunshine extracted from an earth worm who would burrow in the dank, dark depths of the earth. This particular worm only saw the sun rarely when it would emerge to forest the lands.

Those ingredients were sure to cure the most dry and fragile hairs on any chin.

When I found the ingredients, I became an instant success by combining the potent components, bearing the stringent smell while measuring exact measurements. I demonstrated the innovative product to every man, woman, and child in the village.

It wasn't until my heart spontaneously stopped beating in my frail ribcage that I realized the truth about my legendary invention.

As my spent soul left Wilfred's body and rose toward the heavens, I took note of the vivid world too spacious to be located inside a lonely cell but resided inside Wilfred's imagination instead. Before my vision became obstructed by the dense clouds, I also took note of the soiled bed pan beside his lifeless body and the ample amount of his "legendary" moisturizer he had liberally applied to his beard.

I hoped to never experience the pain of Man again.

The heat of the kitchen increased as Chef pulled out a steaming pie from the oven. He shrugged toward my cage and instructed Cook to, "Bring me That Damned Thing, will ya?"

"Yes, sir." Cook dusted his hands on his apron, causing a cloud of flour dust to briefly surround him before quickly settling. "Let's give you a go, old Blackbird." Cook's smile is crooked and stained, and he smells of burnt bitter herbs. The oval shape of his eyes and the disproportionate placement of his nose and mouth ... I'll never forget.

Cook opens my cage so fast it rattles and causes me to thrust about the tiny confinement. I flap my large black wings, but there's no use in trying to fly when I'm aware of my fate.

Two enormous hands corner me and wrap around my fragile body, forcing my wings tight against my body just as the twine of my beak forced me to silence.

Cook removed me from my trappings and spun so quickly my heartbeat tripled. "A meal itself is never enough when it comes to royalty, huh? They have to be so fancy with them between servings entremets."

Chef slammed a rolling pin atop the counter. The bang sent a panic and a rattle throughout my hollow bones, but I couldn't react while enclosed in Cook's floury palms. "Quiet down, will ya?" Chef sneered. "How'd you think Old Royalty will take it if they hear your mouth making laughs at their kind of entertainment? Now, get That Damned Thing over here."

"Sorry, boss."

In no time, I was facing a pie twice as tall as I and round enough to be filled with the meat of a couple piglets. Looking through the trapdoor cut from the bottom of the crust, I barely recognized the wooden scaffolding inside that kept the hollow shell from collapsing. But I imagined the heat, inside the empty darkened shell.

Heat I was all too familiar with.

In the past, I possessed the ability to bring light and heat, and to transform anything I touched to ashes. I wanted to serve mankind, help in its advancement, without being Man himself. Man's was like a magician with his ability to go back in forth in time and believe the realities he created out of falsehoods. Man's abilities were dangerous.

But Fire ...

Fire brought heat to small villages and light to the darkness. In that life, I casted warm glows no matter where I existed. I turned inedible proteins into nourishment, ore into iron, and eventually sand into glass. I was the ever-needed servant.

Heating, burning, transforming. Heating burning, transforming. It wasn't until my transition did I find that not only was I capable of transforming but of destroying. How many children's homes, magical forests, fantastic creatures, guilty men and filthy witches have my flames licked?

I lived life as Man, Creature, Element, and Object, but only felt afraid as such and never fulfilled. I vowed to not only be of service in my next life, but to bring happiness and delight to others as my purpose.

It was warm, moist and deliciously dark in the empty pie shell. The span of my wings was quickly diminished as four and twenty blackbirds filled the empty space. Side by side we stood, with just a few pinpricks of light shining through the vent holes at the top near the scaffolding.

I know it's a matter of minutes before our purpose is yet again realized.

The trapdoor closes. The pie shifts. And in no time the sound of hundreds of dinner guests fills the atmosphere. I anticipate the moment the knife will pierce through the hard pie crust to release me and my fellow blackbirds to a banter of cheers.

I've served this purpose as entremets for the much-feared ruler for many weeks, being kept and prepped for this role specifically.

What role would my spirit fill in the next life?

There's no rush to find out.

Because I've come to appreciate, entertaining dinner guests in such a fashion is a better life than most. If the blade sliced through the pastry and happened to impale my breasts in a gruesome form of entertainment, I would fear what the next life had in store. But until then ...

Above our silent heads, the sound of cracking startled my heart. Large crumbs of shell fell onto our bodies with a thud, allowing a beam of light into our space. The tip of the sharp knife narrowly escapes me as I fly up and out towards the light in an immense round of cheers.

THE END