The Parliament of Rooks

From the Prolog:

I remember everything in the hour leading up to the run, and nothing for the hour after I returned home.  Is that odd?  I’m not sure.  But it’s the truth.  I remember my brother’s friend, that bastard Steve Dogwood, clobbering me in the face; just a random punch that left me with a nosebleed.  And rather than fight back, I took the mouse approach and decided to go for a run.  I was wearing my green Philadelphia Eagles mesh shorts, a YMCA Summer Camp t-shirt, and my brother’s Neshaminy Redskins hat, fixed for my pre-adolescent head and with its red ‘N’ in a field of blue listing badly to port.  I always knew I loved to run, and now I was running from Steve Dogwood and his fist.

There is something aesthetically pleasing about the mountains: the greenery and birdsong and the whole sense of being…if not at peace with the world then being in touch with the only aspect of eternity we finite beings can ever comprehend.  Even then I knew this.  Even then, in the midst of childish tears, painful nasal bleeding, and adrenaline fucking in my veins, I knew this.  The way the wind shifted through the trees, the song echoing in my ears that I had just heard.  It was Nine Inch Nails Hurt, and the sense of isolation stuck with me.

And now there I was, by myself.  Nothing but the-great-fuck-all called the world and me.  No, I was not “at peace” with nature, but I was not at war with it. 

And that was when I heard the flutter of wings.  It was early in the morning and I really wasn’t expecting anything along the lines of an ornithological invasion, but then again I hadn’t been expecting Steve to lean across the breakfast table and slam me with his meat-tenderizer of a fist, either.

My life is full of such pleasant surprises.

I slowed, slowed, stopped, and watched as the many-winged mass fluttered to the earth, a black down blanket.  They landed a few yards away, and when they finally stopped moving, they had all formed a ring around one lone bird.  That center bird started to caw – a rough sound like a crow or raven.  And every time I expected it to stop, it did not.  When it finally did, a bird from the ring would caw at it and that damned center bird would start in again.  I lost track of time while watching this.  Dusk was falling, and as if on some unknowable signal, the ring of birds rose into the air, leaving the center bird.

It paused there for a moment, watching the others fly away, leaving it alone.

I started to walk back to the house.  It was only about a mile; I would get home before the sun set.