Broken and unbroken (One-Shot)

The clouds wept rain, and lightning flashed off in the distance. The park was empty, and I allowed myself to feel a small trickle of relief, then promptly kicked myself for allowing myself to feel good about something when my wife was.... was dead.

I was still in my funeral dress, leaning back on the brown bench, looking up at the grey black clouds that still wept with rain. I haven't yet bothered to change out. What did it matter anyway? Janet was dead, and so was I, though not so much in the traditional sense.

The cold of the rain slowly seeped into my clothes, my skin, my bones and into my heart, freezing it in place, and I felt numb—no, that wasn't the case, I thought. I was in pain, so much pain and grief, that all I could feel was the numbness permeating every inch of my being.

I blinked at the sky above and tried to imagine her looking down on me, with that same radiant smile that always brightened the room, the one that always seemed to chase away the darkness creeping into my mind. I hoped it would comfort me.

It didn't work.

The tears trickled down my cheeks, mixing with the rain and I cried silently. So pathetic. You couldn't even save the one person that was there for you. Worthless, absolute trash. You just lied down there in shock while she bled. It was your fault, you allowed her to die, you killed her. Might as well take out the trash, stick your tongue in the socket, cook the toast in the bathtub, leave the stove on and go to sleep and hope the flames licking at your skin won't wake you up to see your fucking demise—!

[Tap. Tap. Tap]

I froze. Someone was there, they're going to see me in this pathetic state and their eyes will hold that sickening pity as they tell me how sorry—

"Caw, caw!"

I relaxed minutely. It was a bird. A crow, to be exact. It sat at the edges of my peripheral vision, tilting it's head for what I assumed was curiosity. I looked at it closely, and held it's gaze as it looked at me.

For a while, we just looked at each other. Staring into each other, and for a half a second, I thought I saw something—a gleam of uncanny intelligence, perhaps, but before I could do anything, it unfurled its black wings and took off to the sky, clouds weeping with rain, lightning flashing off into the distant distance, and the park was once more empty, save for the distant wailings of a broken man.

[x]

Time passed, as it always did, and always will. The world moved on along with time, intertwined, flowing, and never stopping. Her memory was forgotten by most, remembered by few, and only endeared by one.

I made sure to clean the headstone, pluck the overgrown weeds, and visit her often. The pain, contrary to popular belief, never went away. It was always there, lurking in the back of my head. I only became accustomed to the sharp pain of grief, couldn't escape its grip.

Some things helped, some things did not. Group therapy was a wonderful thing. Being there for someone was significantly easier than being there for yourself, I realized. I tried to ground myself to the here and now, gave myself responsibilities.

One of the few things that helped was feeding the murder of crows by the park. I took the liberty of naming a few of them, the ones that had a physical telltale sign I could recognize them by.

One was Zephyr, the feathered white tailed crow. The other was Kaz, the long beaked. The final one was Taz, the only one who could imitate human speech.

Every Friday, at somewhere around five in the afternoon, I went to the park with a bag of sunflower seeds. It wasn't empty this time, with a few small families out and about relaxing in the grass. Sitting at my usual spot, I started throwing a handful of seeds in advance and waited for the murder to come.

Thankfully, it didn't take long, and soon enough, the ground was covered in a few dozen crows, a cacophony of caws and chirps filling the otherwise silent atmosphere. It was a good thing we were far enough not to disturb the other people in the park, I mused.

A few minutes was all it took for me to run out of seeds and most of the flock seemed to have dispersed already. The only remaining few were Taz, Zephyr, and a few other crows that probably thought I had more on my person.

...well, I did, but I needed those to try and train Taz to speak a few simple words!

The impromptu lesson continued as usual, repeating a word a dozen times and rewarding Taz with food every time he successfully repeated it.

But, towards the end of the lesson though, something... peculiar happened.

[x]

"Hide, hide!"

I sighed despondently. He'd been saying that word over and over for half a minute now, and I only had a few seeds left right now.

Attempts to get him to say anything other were met with varying degrees of success. If I got him to say a new word, he'd just start reverting to saying "hide, hide!" over and over again. Insofar, the longest time I got him to not say "hide" was... three? No, two minutes, I think.

Standing up, I tucked the brown pouch of sunflower seeds into my backpack and started walking towards home. A cup of tea sounded neat right now.

Halfway towards the exit of the park, I heard a familiar "caw!" behind me. I looked behind bewildered.

Taz stopped hopping (Is he following me?) and tilted his head at me.

That's... weird. And mildly concerning. None of the crows had ever followed me. I grimaced.

Somehow, the idea that one of the crows would follow me home left me vaguely uncomfortable. Loath as I am to admit, I have come to slightly associate the crows (ravens?) with my wife, since our first day of contact being on the same day as the funeral.

I shuffled awkwardly in place and tucked my hands into my pockets, waiting for a few hopeful moments that Taz might go away.

"...I don't suppose you'll stop following me if I ask politely?" I asked, trying and failing not to show the resignation on my face.

"Hide, hide!" Taz cawed.

I sighed tiredly.

"Why do I even bother?" I muttered to myself.

"Ice cream! Hide!" Taz cawed again from behind.

I shot a glare over my shoulder as I exited out of the park's property, "If you seriously think I'll buy you ice cream then I really need to reevaluate your intelligence."