Edgar The Raven

The crunching of the dried-up leaves under the feet was subtle compared to the hollering, yowling, howling, growling, grunting, snorting, cawing, mooing, clucking, and hooting heard all around the neighborhood. The brisk air of autumn blew through the still-standing suburban neighborhoods. A few of the domesticated human beings were out being walked by their hybrid animal owners. Not all human beings were lucky enough to get adopted by hybrid animals and remnants of the feral human beings are seen around the towns and cities.

Edgar was tall for a bird, but the average height of a hybrid animal at 5 feet and 5 ½ inches, his feathers and beak were black as midnight, his eyes were reflective balls of light in the dimming evening sunset. He was dressed in his second favorite suit because his first favorite suit had to have adjustments and altercations to accommodate for his growths on the sides of his body under his wings. The doctor he saw earlier in the day clarified to Edgar that these growths were referred to as human appendages called arms with hands. Edgar’s focus as soon as he walked out of the doctor’s office was getting home to exclude himself from society's festivities of this day’s holiday of dominance over humans.

Edgar attempted to cancel the outside celebratory noises of the neighborhood by focusing on the crunch of the leaves under his talons. He would have flown, but he has been feeling insecure about someone noticing his new side growths and he wanted to keep this news unknown until he had a better grasp of knowledge of his situation. A Variety of thoughts raced through his head, his heart pumped faster to catch up with his thoughts, his walking pace had become a brisk power walk, his wings twitch to spread out and fly, but all of this came to an unexpected dead stop.

His left talon had stepped on something small and hard under the dried-up leaves. Edgar brushed the dried-up leaves to the side to see what he had stepped on. There on the ground was a dingy, silver heart-shaped locket. He picked up the heart-shaped locket by the chain to get a better look. He turned his head to the right and studied the heart-shaped locket with his left eye. The heart-shaped locket had a dent on the front cover, the metal locket was mangled by wear and tear.

Without a second thought, Edgar’s human appendages were holding the dirty, dented, grimy heart-shaped locket. His eye was mesmerized by the small trinket of jewelry. His humanized hand’s fingers were gently and slowly feeling every centimeter of the heart-shaped locket. The locket popped open and there inside the metal casing was a picture of two different human beings smiling. Edgar blinked a few times at the image and then realized his human appendages were showing in public. Edgar closed the locket and then squeezed his hand closed around the jewelry, then tucked his human arms under his wings again and proceeded to keep walking home with the locket in his grasp.

Edgar had sensed that something was off since he picked up the heart-shaped locket, like someone’s eyes were on him. Edgar’s feathers became ruffled as he felt something touch him from behind. Edgar cawed loudly and jumped up into the air spreading his wings out to get away from whatever had touched him, he twisted his body around in midair and looked toward the location he was standing, there in the light of the moon he saw a human being staring up at him.

The human being was wearing worn-out clothes, they had messy, unkept, curly hair and their eyes were wide, and their facial expression was surprised, then their eyes began to leak tears as they covered their mouth with their hands and fell to their knees. Edgar dropped down to the ground onto his talons, the human looked familiar for some reason, then Edgar remembered the heart-shaped locket in his grasp. Edgar adjusted his wings and held out his human appendage with the locket in his palm.

“My apologies if I scared you. Is this what you are looking for?”, Edgar asked the sobbing, kneeling human being while placing his open palmed hand in front of them. In one quick motion, the human being grabbed his human hand with the Heart-shaped locket with both their hands and looked up at him.

“Thank you, angel.”, they said to Edgar with tears still streaming down their face but with a smile on their face. The tear-wet, soft, warm fingerless glove-covered hands touching his new humanized skin was a whole new sensation Edgar had never felt before. Edgar felt a new feeling of warmth inside his chest. Edgar did not feel fear toward this earthly creature, he felt compassion and a new connection with them. Edgar helped the human being up onto their feet again, they were as tall as Edgar.

“I am a raven. You can call me Edgar. Do you have a name?”, Edgar asked them while they still were holding hands standing together. They nodded their head, then Edgar asked, “What is your name?”

“Willow. You are a good bird, Edgar.”, Willow told him, they moved one of their hands and touched Edgar on his beak and stroked up his beak to the top of his head and then down the back of his head to where his jacket collar laid on his neck.

A rush of flashes of blurry memories flowed from the back of Edgar’s brain and he remembered the unconditional love his owner had for him. The memories were moments of Edgar’s past of the gentle petting, the kind words, and the love his owner had given him. Edgar’s head lowers as all these old emotions from his past flooded inside him. Edgar’s chest felt a new sensation of agony and loss, the feeling was heavy. Edgar’s thoughts raced as he attempted to bring himself back to the present day.

By the time Edgar had brought himself back from inside his flashbacks, he noticed Willow was still petting him while gently attempting to hush his pain away and his human appendages were wrapped around the human being. Edgar slowly released his grip from around Willow, then looked down at his right human hand with the Heart-shaped locket in his palm.

“Willow, do you have a safe place to sleep?”, Edgar asked Willow. Willow shook her head then removed the heart-shaped locket from his human hand.

“Willow has no home. Willow was left behind. No place is safe for Willow. Willow is alone.”, Willow replied as she moved her tangled locks of hair and clipped the chain of the heart-shaped locket around her neck.

“Come home with me. I will keep you safe.”, Edgar said without hesitation, Willow’s face grew a big wide smile, and nodded enthusiastically then jumped into Edgar’s humanized arms.

‘I guess I have a human pet now.’ Edgar thought to himself, while picked up Willow with his human appendages, then he spread his wings and jumped into the air. Edgar flew Willow and himself to his home. Edgar did not know what new adventures lied ahead for Willow and him, but he had to thank the universe that led him to that heart-shaped locket in the dried-up autumn leaves because he now has a new friend.

A short flight away from their last location, Edgar landed on a rooftop apartment balcony, he let Willow down gently. Willow’s eyes were squeezed shut and their arms were still wrapped around Edgar’s neck, Edgar petted Willow’s head gently with one of his human hands and stated, “You are safe to let go, Willow.”

Willow opened their eyes and released their grip on Edgar. Their eyes caught the high view of the city, their eyes were entranced in the beauty of the night. Edgar observed Willow’s reaction and commented, “The night is quite lovely from this height. Please, be careful of the edge. The fall would kill you.”

“I hope you don’t mind my small and cozy apartment.”, Edgar said while he opened his balcony doors to his apartment, he turned on the living area lights. His apartment had minimal items inside. There were dark wood shelves were built floor to ceiling on one wall. The shelves were covered in books, plus a few knick-knacks and one picture frame in his living area. He had one couch, one coffee table, and one lounge chair that he used mostly for reading.

Willow was still staring out into the horizon. Edgar walked into his small open kitchen to search for some food he could feed to Willow. Edgar muttered under his breath, “What do humans eat again? Beetles? No. The flesh of smaller animals? Maybe…”

During Edgar’s search for human food for his new human pet, Willow finally walked inside of Edgar’s basic, average-sized apartment, she looked around and sniffed the air. Edgar placed a bowl of diversely different-looking eggs on the kitchen bar/table with his beak and proudly declared, “Eggs. Humans can eat eggs. We will have to go to the human-pet store to require better human food for you in the morning.”

Willow looked at the bowl of uncooked, shelled eggs. They reached their finger out toward the eggs and slowly moved their finger toward the bowl of eggs, then poked one of the eggs, then quickly ran away to hide behind the couch. They peeked their head up from behind the couch and then tilted their head at the bowl of eggs. Edgar tilted his head at Willow then looked at the bowl of eggs, then looked at Willow hiding behind his couch. Edgar looked over at the unused stovetop, the idea of cooking the eggs seemed intriguing to him. Edgar looked around his kitchen for equipment to cook the eggs.

Willow saw a reflection of the lamplight on an item on one of the shelves, they stood up and walked over to the shiny object on the wood shelf. Edgar found a large pot with two handles and thought he could make cooking eggs work with this kitchen tool. Edgar turned around and saw Willow holding a picture frame, Edgar placed the pot on top of the stove, then walked over to see what picture frame Willow had in her hands. The dusty picture frame held an old photo of a well-dressed human man with a black Raven sitting on his arm with a few humans behind them. Willow grabbed her heart-shaped locket and squeezed the jewelry tight, then tearfully said, “Edgar’s Family?”

“Yes. Sadly, He died during the chaos years ago. Willow, Is the photo in the locket of your family?”, Edgar replied while he gently grabbed the dusty silver picture frame from Willow’s hands to look at the old photo himself. He wiped the dust off the picture frame glass. Willow’s eyes were leaking tears as she sorrowfully nodded.

“Willow’s family also dead. All I have left is this.”, Willow cried as she held up the opened silver, dirty, dented locket revealing the photo of Willow and another human smiling in the photo. Edgar placed his picture frame back on the wood shelf. He placed his hand on Willow’s shoulder and gently squeezed as his attempt to console her.

“My condolences on your loss, Willow. Losing family is quite difficult.”, Edgar sincerely told Willow.

“Edgar is Willow’s new family?”, Willow asked and looked up into Edgar’s eyes.

“Certainly, we can be each other’s new family.”, Edgar declared with glee. Willow glomped Edgar and held him tight. The squeeze from Willow’s enthusiastic hug knocked the wind out of him and involuntarily made him caw. Edgar felt the warm feeling in his chest again. He thought to himself, ‘this must be what love feels like.’ He wrapped his human arms and his wings around Willow and whispered, “Welcome home, Willow.”