4:45
am and I was dragged up from sleep by the sharp repeated cry of a
crow. A sound far more harsh than the night bark of a fox, and far
more fretful.
The
dream I'd been swathed in instantly disturbed and just as instantly
forgotten as I broke through the surface to wakefulness, turning from
my right side onto my back to lie still under the covers and listen,
intent on trying to figure out, aurally, the cause for alarm and if
there was any need to get up and see.
As
it turned out, there was, for the cawing continued for some minutes,
in the same unbroken vein, its pitch increasing and its tone more
urgent, so that I soon abandoned any hope of returning to sleep,
without rising from my bed.
I
lifted the blind with its Magritte-style blue skies and clouds like a
veil from the window to, instead of a young dawn with rose-red
fingers, a muted canvas, against which the spring green of leaves,
the beige brick of the buildings opposite and the elephant grey of
the tarmac beneath intensified to different shades than when touched
by golden rays, the throne of Dawn.
The
spectacled eyes absorbed this - the subdued light and its strange
effect - despite the continuous, and desperate, cry of the crow,
which not once during this time had been espied. Anywhere. Not
perched in a tree or on a roof, nor in the sky, in circling flight
and bullied, nor on the ground, entangled in any rubbish strewn among
the few parked cars. Nowhere in plain sight and yet it could be
heard, plainly, its noise carried from wherever it was, above, same
level or below.
Koww,
koww, koww, eh-aw, eh-aw. What exactly was it trying to transmit with
its overzealous squawking? A bad human or, as Ovid, the Roman poet
thought, rain. The latter seemed more likely, given the dulled canvas
and since nothing else – no other birds, a late-to-bed fox or a
even a grey squirrel, and certainly no humans it being a Sunday -
were in evidence. There was no other sound disrupting the quiet, nor
any other faces peering from behind windows, scanning the area with
an expression of irritation and concern.
Had
the quiet persisted, undisturbed, and inconspicuous of birds, and had
I still been examining the view at that hour, I might have been able
to liken it to Avernus – a place without birds.
That,
however, was not to be, for the voice of the crow, though unsighted
in the act, made it seem, despite appearances, more jungle-like, a
dense landscape of foliage and growing heat. The sun yet to burn back
the cooler tones of day and then, with it, bring sweat and a light to
daze. To blind the eyes. And bring on thirst to confound the mind
further.
I
lost myself, for a moment, in the mythic reality of it, as I stood
there at the window, believing I was in topics, on a platform made
from, made in and supported by trees, and even possibly sucking a
pebble to assuage a dry parched throat; my drinking water long
finished and the vessel it was drawn from turned upside down. Could
some clean water hole be found? when there'd been no rains and the
tributaries were dust. Brown cracked rivulets as if no water had ever
run through them. Listening to that crow cry, my first thought of the
day, had this been my true location, might have been: could this be,
really be, the harbinger of rain?
Welcome
rain. Monsoon rain. Rain to stand out in. With face upwards, mouth
open and arms spread wide, as wide as they could possibly go, like
the limbs of a tree; the palms cupped to catch drops.
Possible.
Possible. Possibly. The fantasy slip-slipped away. Dust.
My
curiosity settled, I drew the blind, with its Magritte-style blue
skies and clouds, back down and returned to the still-warm cave of
covers, where as soon as my body sank into the mattress and my head
again rested on the dented pillow, the cry of the crow ceased. Its
silence, and this peace, almost a danger in itself. Had the danger
passed or had it come?
I
succumbed to some sort of sleep. A sleep that was light but went on,
so that I was quite perturbed when I did again awaken. To the same
day, with no chariot of sun; or the cry of the crow, revived.
Picture credit: Crow, Ohara Koson (source: WikiArt).
All posts published this year were penned during the last.
