A Piece of You

Grey skies encompassed the tone of the afternoon as a flock of black birds circled around in the skies, almost blending in with the overcast. She looked up and let out a deep, reflective sigh. “How did I get here?” she thought to herself, pounding on the hood of her ’98 Bronco. Sweat dripped down from her brow and onto the cement that rested below her feet. Despite the cloud cover, it was sweltering hot and she knew from her experience in the south that a storm was coming. A storm indeed, one that would force her to reconsider everything she had ever come to know.

It was a welcome addition to her psyche, as things had been looking bleak for some time. Her black hair kicking about in the wind and her small face showing the hurt that she endured on a daily basis proved the pain she endured on this planet. The past six months were riddled with many signs of her untimely demise, and the birds up above lent no credence to think otherwise. She felt for her cell phone in the mess that was her purse and grasped it with her left hand. Coming out along with it was her AAA card, and she punched the first three numbers into her dial pad. She stopped and put her phone away at the sight of the raven.

The bird landed on the roof of her car and stayed, stared at her. She put the phone back into her purse and stepped towards it, examining it like a young boy who had captured his first insect. Before she could muster a thought, the bird speak to her.

“Lisa, you know what all of this means, don’t you?”

“You? What you mean?”

“Not only me. The visions, the fear of leaving all of this behind. Corey. I know of him, I know it all.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?”

The bird waddled in a circular fashion, as if to detest everything she had said thus far. He came closer to her with a defiant expression on his face, head cocked to the side, as if he was above her.

“Don’t you realize where all of your fears live? I live in the same place, and it’s all in your head. You can’t honestly think I’m carrying a conversation with you, right?” The bird fell back and rolled around in a fit of laughter in front of her vulnerable eyes. Whatever this raven would follow up with she would surely buy into.

“If I’m talking to you, and you’re talking to me then who is the crazy one?”  the bird quipped while remaining on his backside. Lisa clenched for the bird but he rolled out of her reach and on his feet in one quick motion.

“Why are you doing this to me? Don’t I go through enough? What do you want from me?”

“What is it that you think I want?”

“Do you know how annoying it is for someone to follow up a question with?” a question

“Do you know that you did just that?”

Lisa shook her head as if it would help to get a grip on reality. She reached into her open window and retrieved a twenty ounce bottle of Diet Coke. Bending down at the face of her vehicle, she sat on the ground as tears replaced the sweat that previously hit the ground on her behalf. She checked her phone and noticed two missed calls from a debt collection agency. She brushed it off as no big deal, she ignored them most of the time anyways.

The bird crept down from the roof to the hood of her crimson Bronco, startling her when he assumed she was ready to pick up the conversation.

“Leave me alone or I swear to everything, I will kill you!”

The bird chuckled and danced around the hood to prove that he was too quick for her to kill. She bent down once again. Unsuspecting to the bird, she picked up a piece of broken road from the left of her and stood up. She placed the piece of pavement into her back pocket and rekindled the conversation.

“If your kind could kill me with their bare hands we’d be extinct by now! You can try but I guarantee you can’t do it. Not possible. Nope, no way, try me.

Rain started to drop from the sky in symmetrical pellets, hitting everything in their path except the two who stood face to face. She stood up to look him in the eye and let out a furious scream just to gauge the reaction from the bird.

“Tell me what you want me from me right now or you’ll die. I’m not joking.” She said this with a stern look on her face. The bird knew she meant what she declared.

“You make it seem like I don’t know what you’re about to do, what you’re planning. I know it all.”

“You don’t know shit! You’re a fucking bird! You can’t even speak. . .  fuck! What am I doing to myself?”

“If this is what you think this is, you’ll be able to grab me and kill me with no problems. End your fears with me. Kill me.”

“I don’t want to kill you. I swear I don’t, but If I do, does this all end with you?”

“I can’t tell you that, Lisa. You live and you learn, it is up to you.”

She dug for the rock in her back pocket and the raven remained still as the shadow of his death overcame him.