[An assignment from Storytelling Collective‘s Short Story September 2022 Challenge that I had fun doing.]
Now what?
Arnie had successfully bullied the other paper boys out of their cargo and persuaded their newspaper supplier to take him up on the bet: triple pay per delivery if he manages to do the circuit on time; a week of free work if he fails. Thing is, Arnie is barely halfway through, and the sun is farther along in its trajectory than it should.
Riding his bike while pulling a whole extra cart of newspapers behind him proved much harder than he expected. He stops to take a break, breathing heavily, his shirt sticking to his body from all the sweat. Can’t stop too long, or else his body cools too much and the dampness of his clothes sends him shivering with the morning breeze.
“Caw!”
“The fuck are you looking at?!” He angrily throws a rolled-up newspaper at the raven perched on the Williamsons’ postbox.
It dodges effortlessly and looks Arnie dead in the eye. The newspaper lands on Williamsons’ lawn.
“That’s one more delivery. But I fear at this pace you’ll lose your bet.”
“I’m not discussing my work with a bird.”
“Well, too bad. We birds are already discussing your work among ourselves. Sure you don’t need a hand? Or a talon, for that matter?”
Arnie experiences a mix of emotions. Indignation at a bird doubting his capabilities, humiliation that the other birds seem to agree, desperation because they’re probably right, a bit of fear because him losing his marbles seems more likely than a bird talking to him, and greed. He really wants the money.
“Don’t think you and I alone can do it,” he tells his feathered interlocutor.
“We can’t. Right. Several talons, then. We folks of a feather have a proposition for you,” replies the raven with a glint in his beady eyes. Arnie notices out of the corners of his eyes that other ravens are watching from rooftops and tree branches.
“We help you with the deliveries. Get it all done in a jiffy. And sneaky-like, so the featherless people don’t know what’s up. But we get to eat you when you die.”
“What the hell? Why do you want that?!”
“What, you think I learned to talk from listening? The brain’s where it’s at, kid! Now, wanna get your money or not? Then you go live your life and we collect our due when your time comes.”
Arnie considers. Why not? His soul will be in heaven, and he doesn’t think the ravens having his meat is more offensive than giving it to the worms anyway.
“You guys have to keep helping me, though. For the rest of the summer. Deal?”
“Deal!”
“Deal!”
“Deal!”
“Deal!”
“Deal!”
“Deal!”
“Deal!”
Say all the ravens, and descend upon the newspaper cart like a nightmare.
Arnie’s summer sure earns him a lot of money. He even develops a bit of banter with the ravens, but they go back to normal once it’s over. He feels abandoned when the new semester starts, and they all seem like stupid birds again. Heartbroken, even. He tries the same thing the following summer, to no effect, losing the bet in the process.
“Stupid fucking birds. Bastards of a feather. Fuck you all!” He snaps and throws a rock at an older-looking raven, missing. It looks at him in a most puzzling way and flies off.
Over the years, Arnie starts to wonder if he didn’t dream up the whole thing.
On the tenth summer since that one, Arnie, now a young man with a job and a girlfriend and bills to pay, wakes up and gets on his way to work a couple blocks down. The ravens are everywhere. A shiver runs down his spine. They approach gradually, beady eyes boring holes into his back. He takes off running. Such is his haste and such is his terror that he doesn’t look either side before crossing a busy street.
The car flings him in the air, spinning. Bones poking out. The driver, horrified, brakes and opens the door to go check up on the young man he just hit, but thinks better of it as a black wave of wings and beaks and talons descends upon Arnie.
Like a nightmare.
They shout among themselves, vying for specific parts. Arnie, unable to defend himself, bleeding out his consciousness, recognizes the voice of that very first raven from way back. “Brain’s mine! Mine! I did the deal, I get the prime stuff!”
It will behoove the reader to know, should a raven approach them with a similar deal one day, that the average lifespan of a raven is 10 to 15 years.
When Arnie’s ravens are done, they are all younger by at least 5.
