The Bed Rest Chronicles: Week 6

I’m at 34 weeks now. Whew. Week six of bed rest has begun, and the end of the tunnel is faintly visible. The frustration is still hanging around, but added to that emotion is a fresh spattering of panic. Sure, I’m panicked about what it’s going to be like raising three kids, but that’s nothing new, really. No, I’m starting to panic about all the things that need to be done in the next few weeks, and how little I can do about it.

We’ve got gifts to buy, school supplies to organize, babysitting decisions to make (what do we do with the kids when I go into the hospital? If it’s a weekend we can wake up a neighbor in the middle of the night – if need be – to stay with the kids, but otherwise, do we take them with us? And what if I’m home alone with the kids? Do I call the ambulance, grab the cell phone, and call the parents on the way? I still haven’t packed a backpack of activities for the boys if they do come to the hospital; clearly they’ll have to be occupied if it takes too long for the grandparents to arrive (as is apt to happen since they now have to drive even farther than last time).

But my biggest concern right now is that we still haven’t purchased a minivan. And that we have two salesmen competing for our business. You see, my husband and I went to the dealership one day, and were helped by one guy. But before he could take us for a test drive, someone with an appointment showed up and he had to leave. So someone else came and took us on the test drive. So, given that scenario, who’s our salesman? The first guy has called us a couple times (leading to my husband having to tell him to back off), while the second guy has sent us a couple things in the mail. They’re competing. And I really wish we could use that to our advantage in terms of pricing, but I don’t know how that would play out. But, there’s really nothing I can do about it. I have to just wait until my husband has enough free time to go out and test drive the other van and decide. Because at this point, I don’t think I should do it.

Two more weeks, that’s all that’s necessarily left. Three weeks would be better, of course, and any more even better still, but two more weeks is the end of the tunnel. And still my novel isn’t written and my basket is filled with unread stories. The French novel I was hoping to read is still at chapter six, George Washington still isn’t president in his biography, and the three or four novels loaned to me still sit waiting for me.

Revisionist History

When I was younger, my family lived in a three-bedroom apartment in North Carolina. I remember that my parents slept in the first bedroom on the right, and my sister, brother, and I all shared the next bedroom – the master bedroom. And I remember the room at the end of the hall was where we would set up our Christmas tree.

The coolest thing I remembered about our apartment was that our bedroom had three twin beds, and my sister, brother, and I (or at least I) would jump from one bed to the next. It was a blast. I also remember a huge hill across the parking lot from our apartment.

Well, a few years back, I had the opportunity to return to the old apartment. Evidently, the “huge hill” really wasn’t. But then again, my twenty-something year old eyes were relying on the memories of a six year old.

As for the beds – well, my sister recently informed me that they didn't exist either. We apparently never had twin beds in North Carolina. Rather, the room had a crib and a full bed. That’s it. So clearly, there was no jumping going on.

So now, my clearest memories of my three years in North Carolina include:
• sitting in the kitchen watching a Daddy Longleg walk up my arm, not freaked out until my family showed up and told me not to panic while my dad got out a fly swatter and “saved” me;
• eating my first cereal – Apple Jacks, still an occasional favorite – when we first moved in;
• getting a splinter, then getting to choose who got to watch “Gilligan’s Island” and eat ice cream with me afterwards. I don’t remember whom I chose, but I know everyone ended up watching it; and
• going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and falling in because somebody didn’t put the seat down.

Yeah, that about sums it up. I have a few more memories, but I’m afraid to mention them because these may all turn out to be false, too. Maybe that’s why I’m a writer. I can make up all the memories I want and nobody can say they didn’t happen because I’m making up the characters that these events happen to, too. It’s quite empowering, really.

In college, I decided that regret was useless. Really, if I’m happy with who I am today, then I have no reason to regret anything, because anything different in my past would mean that I would be a different person today. And for the most part, I still believe that to be true. Of course, I’m also the kind of person who will rehearse a line over and over before I say anything, to make sure I won’t be misunderstood and my words won’t offend.

But now, there’s an added reason not to regret anything. If I don’t actually remember events in my past, then how could I be sure I did anything wrong?

How’s that for a great defense?

How Do Spells Work?

How do spells work? I’ve been wondering about this since reading the sixth Harry Potter book, when the Half-Blood Prince made up some spells, or curses, that when said for the first time with the right amount of meaning, caused something to happen. So how does that work?

I can understand potions. You mix together certain ingredients, and the combination yields certain results. I myself have created “potions” in chemistry lab and in the kitchen. It is logical. And the concept of creating new potions makes sense too – put together a combination of ingredients that have never been put together exactly like that before, and you’ve created a new potion. Trial and error will determine what effect (if any) that new potion will have.

But spells? Please somebody explain it to me. You say a certain phrase (which, perhaps, you’ve just made up) with the right frame of mind and something happens? Why? And evidently if you write down the word and someone else says it, it still has the same effect. But how? To me, this implies that the power is already in the word. For example, if I were a witch, and decided that if I wiggled my nose (or pointed my wand) while saying the word ‘Jujubeeify,’ and my intent was that whoever I was looking at when I did that would be turned into a giant Jujubee, then this would happen. And in the event that it did happen, then anyone else could then do the same thing. But how did the word get to be associated with the action of turning someone into a giant Jujubee?

Let me explain my confusion. As a computer scientist, my understanding of how programming works leads me to interpret things in a certain way. I write a program, compile it (converting it to a runnable program), and then anyone with the program (in its executable form) can run it. So, for example, I could write a simple program that allowed me to type the word “Jujubeeify” and a picture of a jujubee would appear. Then, if I sent this program to someone else, they could run the program, type “Jujubeeify”, and see a picture of a jujubee. The code itself, which is sent around, is what makes the picture of the jujubee appear with the proper input (in this case typing the word; in magic, wiggling the nose or pointing the wand).

So, given that process, how is the magical meaning of the new curse or spell distributed? The book seemed to imply that anyone who says the word would see the same result. But what if they don’t want that result? What if someone else creates a curse using the same word that has a different result? What happens then? Is that even possible? Or, as I said before, is the spell already out there, and it’s just a matter of discovering the pre-determined meaning? In which case, witches and wizards would at most be able to discover curses as opposed to create them. Or, is there some great magical server where all magic resides, and once somebody creates a curse, it is automatically uploaded and accessible by every magical being, though not everyone knows how to find it?

STORY: The Beast of the Suburban Jungle

Becky is here at the grocery store. She still wears bangs, but they are even. She’s carrying a bright red purse. She doesn’t see me; she has two boxes of pasta to her ears and is staring intently at another on the shelf. She’s wearing jeans with at least three differently patterned patches sewn on (one was plaid, one was striped, and one had neon flowers), and a bright purple sweatshirt with flowers painted on. I wonder about her. Twenty-five years later, I still don’t know what to say. So I turn down the cereal aisle and continue to shop, my cheeks feeling suddenly warm.

When I was eleven, my family moved to a new house in the suburbs. Behind our house, past our backyard, was an untamed tract of land called “the Jungle.” At least, that’s what Becky called it when she wandered into our backyard the day we moved in.

Rainbow-colored backpack over her shoulders, Becky led me between the two giant oaks, left at the prickly bushes, and down the barely-noticeable dirt path to the giant rock. We sat on the rock as she told me how she and “the gang” had wandered through my house while it was still being built. When she told me that she and Joey had shared their first kiss in my bedroom, I didn’t know what to think.

We wandered on to a tiny creek. There she pointed out her house, a mirror image of my own, and further down the creek, Joey’s house. She sighed and leaned her head to one side, her amber hair brushing her shoulder, whenever she talked about him; I struggled not to laugh at this girl I had just met.

“Hey, let’s go back to your house,” said Becky, jumping up suddenly.

“Well…” I said.

“Oh c’mon. It’s not like I haven’t been there before,” she said, grabbing my hand. “Besides, I can help you unpack.”

And she did. In about an hour, Becky and I had unpacked all the boxes in my room. She shrieked when she saw my binoculars.

“Oh my god, this is so cool,” said Becky, looking through the binoculars. “I have a pair too. Hey, look.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my window. “That’s my bedroom there. Look, you can see my canopy.”

I looked through the binoculars and saw a rainbow painted on the far wall. The canopy over her bed also looked like a rainbow.

“You sure like rainbows, don’t you?” I asked.

“My mother always told me I was the gold at the end of the rainbow.”

I giggled. For about thirty seconds, it was silent; all I heard was a soft patting sound. Although I hadn’t known her long, I had realized this silence was unusual with Becky around – so I turned around. Becky was frowning and looking at her hands. She made a fist with one hand and hit the palm of her other hand. Then she switched hands. Over and over again she did this. I watched for a while before speaking.

“That’s sweet,” I said. “My mother calls me her little sunshine.”

Becky looked up and smiled, her hands falling to her sides. “So we’re both in the sky.”

Every morning, I would look out my bedroom window and see Becky sitting at her window facing me. When she saw me, she would hold up a pink pad of paper. I would pull out my binoculars and read her message.

“Jungle After Breakfast?” she would write.

Still feeling the sting on the scratches on my legs from the day before, I would respond, “Maybe later.”

She would suggest the playground, or hanging out with her friends, and just then my mom would come in telling me of some shopping trip we would have to take after breakfast, and I’d have to tell Becky “Sorry. Gotta hang with Mom.”

“That’s ok. Joey just called. Gonna hang with him,” was her usual reply.

In that way, Becky and I would sometimes go several days without seeing one another. But then she would appear in my backyard and sit on the grass and wait until I happened to look out our bay window. One afternoon, after my four-year-old twin cousins had left after visiting for the day, I found her sitting cross-legged in the middle of the lawn, backpack in her lap. She was doing that fist thing with her hands while looking up at the giant oak at the edge of our lawn.

“Hey, Beck,” I said.

“Hey, Shell,” said Becky, looking up at me but not dropping her hands.

“How long you been out here today?”

“Three birds and two squirrels,” said Becky absently. She refused to wear her watch during vacation. She had shown it to me once in her room; it was gold and had a rainbow wristband. She said she loved the watch and actually missed it during vacation, but didn’t wear it because then it made her look forward to the school year.

“My cousins were here,” I said.

“Mm hmm,” she said.

I was tired from chasing the boys around all day, and just wanted to be alone for a while. She kept punching her palms.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I thought we could hang out,” said Becky.

“I’m really tired.”

She stood up. “Then I should go.”

“All right,” I said, turning toward the house.

“School starts soon,” said Becky.

I turned back around. “Yeah.”

“We could go together,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

Silence. Then she picked up her backpack and held it out. “Here. I thought you might still need one.”

“Actually, I already got one.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, dropping her arms. “Well, I told Joey I’d meet him at the rock. See you.”

Then she turned and ran into the woods. I went inside and watched television.

Every day after dinner, I would wander through the Jungle on my own, creating a map in my mind. I would sometimes retrace routes Becky and I had taken earlier, but inevitably I would stray from the known to explore the unknown. It was thus that I discovered the oasis. I knew there had to be something, since the creek didn’t continue to the next street, but I hadn’t expected to find this gorgeous little waterfall – more like rapids – leading to a shimmering pond. I nicknamed it the oasis because after scratching up my legs and arms on all the prickers along the path, it was really quite a welcome sight that I couldn’t believe existed.

It seemed to me that nobody knew about the oasis, because otherwise, it would be crowded and a more obvious path would exist. The day I found it, I stayed for an hour before wandering aimlessly and coming out two streets over and walking back home. The next day, I got up early and followed the creek until the path was too overgrown and I had to turn back and find another way back to the pond. Finally, during the course of a week, through trial and error – and ultimately by leaving markers along the way – I mapped out the route.

The day before school started, I wandered to the rock and stood on it to find Becky to show her my discovery. I didn’t see her. I decided I would walk around the pond and map a course to her house (along the other side of the creek) on my way back. I was surprised to hear voices as I approached the rapids. When I got to the pond, there were Becky, Joey, and a few of the other neighbor kids from their street. Becky and some girl were talking, while Joey and a couple of boys were skipping stones across the water.

“Hey, Beck,” I called.

Becky turned her head and her smile disappeared. She turned back to the girl. “So do you like this pond that Joey and I found?” She sat punching alternating fist to palm, again and again.

“You discovered this? When?” I asked, walking toward them.

“Oh, a while ago,” she said. “I like the markers you added.”

“So why didn’t you show it to me?”

Becky’s face turned red. “We don’t let just anyone come here, you know. You have to be special.”

Something about the way she said special made me feel suddenly queasy. She stood up and started pacing, still punching her fists. I looked over at Joey, who didn’t seem to notice Becky, but instead kept skipping rocks with his friend. The girl was now staring into the water.

So she was upset that I hadn’t shown her this place. I felt bad that I hadn’t included her, but it wasn’t like we had known each other very long. Besides, she was spending more and more time with Joey. I didn’t think she would be interested. Apparently I had assumed incorrectly. Becky kept pacing, stamping her feet harder and harder with each step, her fists now starting to make a sound as they hit the other hand.

“Oh yeah, Joey and I have been coming here all summer,” she said.

Joey was bent over picking up more flat stones, and I watched as he looked up at Becky with a confused expression on his face, then turned to one of his friends and shrugged his shoulders. I looked back at Becky, who stood still now with her hands at her waist, elbows sticking out.

She continued. “To think, I actually thought of inviting you a couple of times. But, of course, you were too busy for me.”

She scrunched her lips together so her cheeks looked inflated. She stared at me, her eyes filling up with water. She turned her back to me as the first tear started to sneak out of the corner of her eye.

“Look, Becky, I’m sorry. I meant to show this to you. But I kept getting lost. I finally set up markers and came looking for you before I came here today,” I said. I really did feel badly. I just didn’t think she would be this upset.
Becky stepped toward me. She turned to the girl, who remained seated and turned her head away when Becky looked back. Becky looked back at me.

“The jungle was mine long before you came here. You don’t get to go off discovering new places without me. You owe me. I welcomed you to the neighborhood, showed you the coolest places in the jungle, and this is how you repay me? You find this awesome place and hide it from me? I thought you could be my friend. I guess I was wrong. You’re just a selfish beast!” Becky turned and ran back into the jungle, but not before I had seen the tears that had started to stream.

I stood there, four pairs of eyes staring at me, not really sure what to do. I looked at Joey, who shrugged his shoulders and went back to skipping stones in the water with his friend. I looked at the girl, who stared blankly back at me. In that moment, an incredible wave of sadness and pity swept over me. Becky had considered me her best friend. But I failed her. These other people, they didn’t care. They spent time with her, but they didn’t think of her as a friend. None of them would run after her. It didn’t matter to them if Becky, with her jagged bangs that she cut herself and rainbow-colored backpack that she carried everywhere but had inadvertently left lying near the pond, was upset.

I picked up the backpack and ran after her. Before long, however, I was lost and wandered for about half an hour before making it onto a side street. I walked to Becky’s house and, unsure of what to say, left the backpack on her front porch. I walked home and acted as if nothing had happened, but suddenly I dreaded the morning, the first day of school.

My parents still live in that house. The jungle has been mowed, and a walking trail loops around the creek and the pond, with a quaint wooden bridge passing over the rapids. Benches line the trail, and a playground sits where the large rock used to be. My kids like to run back there, play on the slide and swings, and I am happy that they can enjoy it. Usually I am fine, but if I climb on the jungle gym and look toward Becky’s house - or as I walk around the trail, if I find myself standing by the pond in the exact spot where Becky had lost her backpack and her best friend - my throat feels crowded, my face feels hot, and my cheeks feel suddenly wet. And I smile.

Standing in the grocery store, I see Becky get into the checkout lane by the cookie aisle where I stand. I see that I am holding a pack of rainbow cookies. I know what I must do. I quickly get into line behind her.

“Do you think there might be gold at the end of these rainbow cookies?” I say.

She turns her head.

I Think I May Be Losing My Mind

I think I may be losing my mind. Seriously. I’m alone in the house (except for my dog), typing away (after wasting a good amount of time on the internet), with the air conditioner on. And I hear music. I don’t recognize the song, but it’s definitely there. There are no workers outside that might be playing their radio. A little earlier, I had heard the neighbor practicing some wind instrument (I’m so bad at identifying – perhaps clarinet?), but that’s done now.

The song sounds a little like “Take a Picture” by Filter, or some other song by them. But it’s over now, and is replaced by some other song. Actually, it sounds more like an orchestra warming up. Seriously, a radio is faintly running in my head. Now, normally, I would go upstairs and make sure both clock radios (mine and my husband’s) are turned off, but I can’t – or at least, I shouldn’t. Besides, my clock radio is set for 7 am, and it certainly didn’t go off then. Besides, this has happened before. When I’m lying in bed. And my husband cannot hear it. So unless there’s some clock radio buried in the walls somewhere (operated by a mouse or something, I don’t know, because I don’t hear it all the time), this music must be in my head.

Okay, it’s gone now. All I hear is the familiar buzz of the air conditioner and the tapping of the keyboard. That ought to be of some comfort to me, and yet I find myself straining to hear it again, missing my mind’s soundtrack.

Well, silence only pleases for so long before I need a mental reprieve. And so the television is on. I understand why people keep music on in the background. Perhaps the world needs a commercial channel, airing commercials around the clock, with “shows” featuring commercials from the past. You know, something that I could tune out. It would be cool seeing celebrities in the bit parts they were in before they hit it big, like the Dr. Pepper commercial with Jason Alexander (George Costanza). I mean, right now I’m watching the A-Team, where Dennis Franz (quite thin and – obviously – much younger) plays the crooked owner of a used car dealership. I’m gathering that it’s an elaborate plot to get the van back after it was stolen.

But as I was saying, the music is gone, drowned out by B.A. Barracus and the rest of the A-Team. And here is a Scooby-Doo commercial. Which reminds me that I had once decided that if I ever stooped to getting a minivan, I’d paint it to look like either the A-Team van or the Mystery Machine. And now that we’re getting close to acquiring said van, I suppose a decision will have to be made. Let’s see, one was a group of gun-toting renegade do-gooders, the other was a group of pot-smoking teens. Hmm, which car would I like to drive my kids around in? And yes, I know, I’m way over-thinking this, especially since it’s never going to happen. Just like my writing.

Toy Guns: Are They So Bad?

So my general parenting philosophy has been that toy guns are not good. Teaching kids that guns, violence, and hurting others is something to be done for fun just seems wrong. Violence begets violence, so letting them watch fighting and killing on television are also wrong.

Well, first of all, monitoring my kids’ television viewing has gotten much more difficult lately, since when they stay at their grandparents’ houses, they are allowed to watch show after show, unmonitored, with the general assumption being that as long as they’re watching cartoons, they’re fine. So my kid comes home telling me about all sorts of shows he’s watched, all the great fighting scenes where the heroes shoot and kill the bad guys. And he proceeds to play act all sorts of scenes from these shows. Of course, my son has learned to defend his actions, responding when I ask what he’s doing by saying he’s only fighting bad guys.

But of course, that escalates. And lately, he’s taken out his frustrations on other people, including his brother. And finding effective ways to channel his –sometimes-violent – energy can be challenging.
So earlier this week I was watching a rerun of “7th Heaven” and the Reverend’s father, a retired Colonel, was playing cowboys with his young grandsons (I guess it’s probably unnecessary to mention that they’re young, since teenagers don’t often play cowboys). The Colonel mentioned that he had to go out and buy the wooden toy guns because he couldn’t find any in the house. The reverend replied that there was a reason for that; that he and his wife don’t believe kids should play with guns. Well, the Colonel’s response was that sometimes kids should fight the bad guys. It’s okay to know there are bad guys out there, and that they need to step up to the plate and fight for what’s right. They need to learn to stand up for themselves and for good, and pretend fighting is a good way to do that.

I have to say, much as I hate to think that I would change my parenting philosophy based on a television show, it would be unreasonable for me to completely discount a well-presented, reasonable argument. Usually, the standard argument is “it’s not a big deal” or “you’re over-reacting” or “I played with toy guns when I was a kid and I turned out fine.”

Frankly, even if we have no toy guns in the house, imagination turns plastic golf clubs and countless other toys into guns. One choice is to continue what I’m doing now, and say no to guns. Another option is to give in, to just let it go and hope that what the Colonel said is right. And finally, my third option is to let him play with his pretend guns, but to make him clarify whom the bad guy is and discuss what makes this guy bad and worth fighting. Maybe by clarifying whom it’s okay to fight he’ll be less inclined to fight the good guys. (Kind of in a ‘Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff’ manner, where he’s fighting terrorists and should maintain his cool when his brother knocks down his train tracks or block tower.

Worst of the East meets Worst of the West

Sometimes, I’m just so proud to be Indian. The ancient country has contributed much to the world. Search the Internet for Indian contributions and you can get a decent listing, but I’ll mention some of the contributions here:
• An Indian, Aryabhatta, invented the number zero
• Sanskrit is the mother of all European languages
• An Indian first calculated the value of Pi
• India was the first nation to elect a female leader (prime minister Indira Gandhi)
• Algebra, trigonometry, and calculus all came from India
• Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism were all started in India
• Indians head up many companies, including Arthur Andersen, Mckinsey, Computer Associates, Bose, and Yahoo! to name a few.
• Mahatma Gandhi
• But NOT sexist golf pro Vijay Singh, who hails from Fiji
There’s a bunch more listed here if you’re interested, but for now, I think I got my point across.

So anyhow, India is great, right? Did a lot in the past, doing a lot now. Stand proud, shout from the hilltops that you’re proud to be Indian. Aishwarya Rai is getting to be a household name. Henna is pretty popular, as were the movies “Bend It Like Bekham” and “Monsoon Wedding,” movies that delve into Indian marriages. And speaking of marriage, I know how difficult the whole process of finding that special someone can be (okay, not personally, since I got married right out of college to a guy I had dated for 3 years). Indian men and women who grew up in America, always planning on finding someone on their own in the American way, find themselves tiptoeing in the waters of arranged marriages. Journalist Anita Jain wrote an interesting article about her experiences with arranged marriages.

Over the years, I’ve heard plenty about arranged marriages, both positive and negative. Sometimes, arranged marriages don’t work out, just as they don’t for love marriages, and end in divorce. On the other hand, my cousin in India was said to have had a love marriage, but nobody knew it – not even the couple. She and her husband had an arranged marriage, but their match was so perfect, and they get along so well, that it may as well have been a love marriage.

Ideally, arranged marriages are a great idea. Parents or close relatives, who know the prospective bride well, know a guy well that they think the girl will get along with. In fact, they know the guy’s family as well, so they are reassured that the bride will be welcomed into the new household in addition to getting along well with the boy. This is, in essence, just like a friend setting you up on a blind date, but keeping the whole family in mind. By picking a family of a similar economic standing, same caste, and same religion, parents hope that they can keep a girl’s wedding clear of some of the major sources of conflict (money and religion) by making sure the boy and girl share similar ideals. After all, all parents want is for their kids to be happy.

However, not everyone acts ideally. I’ve heard of stories (maybe just in movies, mostly just hearsay) of the groom’s family demanding a higher dowry on the wedding day, and walking out when the bride’s parents cannot come up with the money on the spot. The girl is then shamed and has a harder time getting married. Mostly, I believe, this would happen in villages in India, and even though dowries are illegal in India, the system still prevails (as “gifts”). Here in America, I haven’t heard much about any dowries being given, but maybe that’s just my naivety, or Indian people really are capable of keeping mum about certain things.

But never did I imagine, even knowing that Indians in the past back in the homeland would resort to the acts mentioned above (demanding dowries and walking out) could stoop to what I just read about in the paper. A Massachusetts family actually sued a Maryland family for falsely representing a relative in India, with whom a marriage was being arranged, leading to $200,000 in emotional distress. The charges were fraud, conspiracy and violation of civil rights. What happened? When the Massachusetts family finally went to India to meet her, they discovered that the girl - the Maryland couple’s niece - was ugly. And so the marriage was called off, and the Pandey family of Massachusetts sued the Giri family of Maryland, who had claimed that the girl was “equally beautiful” to the boy.

Personally, I’d like to see pictures of the boy and girl. My gut instinct is that the boy really isn’t all that (certainly his family isn’t). Frankly, I’d say the girl is lucky. She may not make it out of India, and maybe should get her protruding teeth fixed, but this guy is not the greatest specimen of Indian male out there.

Something tells me that other women, upon learning about this case, won’t be racing to meet him. His family doesn't exactly sound like a family I'd want any of my friends to be part of. Perhaps I'm being a bit hasty in my judgment, and I shouldn't judge them or dismiss them so readily. But isn't that exactly what they did to this poor girl?

STORY: The Raven Follows

A piece of wood jabbed the middle of my back, but I didn’t shift. I took shallow breaths so the raven wouldn’t notice where I’d gone. As it passed over the trees, I lost sight of it for just a moment and, seeing this entryway, took cover. But my bright red coat would doubtless catch its eye again.
Why does it follow me? What doom could be impending? I noticed him first this morning as I looked out my bedroom window and he stared into my eyes – from the branch of a tree fifty feet away – and seemed to smirk at me. Assuming it was a trick of the morning light, I moved on. After slipping in the shower and bumping my head, accidentally shaving off half my goatee, and jabbing my toothbrush too hard and cutting the inside of my mouth, I went downstairs, where I burned my toast and dropped my eggs on the floor. Un-satiated, running late, I rushed out the door – without my keys – and, running down the street to catch the bus to class, I saw again, in the reflection of a puddle, the raven.
On the bus, my eyes ticked and tocked between my exam notes and the raven, flying alongside my window. When the bus took two turns in quick succession, the raven quickly followed.
“Wooh, that sure doesn’t look good,” said the girl sitting in front of me.
I said nothing, but re-read the same equation a third time.
“That raven is giving me the creeps,” she said, louder.
“What? It’s just an ugly bird.”
“Au contraire,” she said, turning around to face me, gaining height by sitting on her knees. “The raven is the harbinger of death, the messenger of bad tidings, the carrier of disease. But I don’t suppose they’d mention that in your –“ She looked down at my notes “- Chemistry classes.”
“Sure, no, yeah this is chemistry,” I said, looking back down at my notes, anxious to pass my upcoming exam.
When finally the bus reached my stop, I stood up and noticed that the girl had risen too. I pulled my backpack over my shoulder, lowered my head and walked briskly. But the girl kept up easily, despite her long skirt and high heels.
“It’s still there, you know?” she said. When I did not respond, she continued. “The raven. It’s still following you.”
I stopped. “How do you know it’s following me?”
“I watched you run down the street to catch the bus. It was following you the whole time,” she said. “Well, good luck on your test. I’m sure the raven isn’t warning you that you’re going to fail or anything, so don’t even think that.”
“But I wasn’t thinking that!” I yelled after her. “Wait a minute.” I followed her path, thinking she needed to apologize for psyching me out right before my exam, and looked around, but couldn’t see her. She couldn’t have gotten very far, I thought, and finally caught a glimpse of her skirt and the heel of her shoe as she stepped into the theater building.
Of course, I thought, a theater student. That explained the long multi-color skirt and long black v-neck sweater with the big buckled belt around her waist and green scarf around her neck. And it certainly explained why she believed that craziness about the raven.
I took a deep breath, and then walked into the Chemistry building, not even checking to see where the raven might be.
After my exam, I walked out of the building and wondered whether my roommate would be ready to go to the bar.
“Hey! Raven-boy! Did the bell toll?”
I heard the voice and turned to see theater girl sitting on the half wall around the corner. She jumped off the wall and walked to me.
“Aren’t you mixing literary references or something?” I asked.
“Impressive. A scientist who knows literature,” she said.
“I’m not a scientist. At least, not after that test I’m not,” I said as we walked together to the bus stop. We walked to the student union in silence, got some food, then sat down and started eating. I looked around at all the familiar faces looking at me in disbelief. This was, after all, the first time they had seen me with another person, let alone a girl.
“So has anything bad happened to you today?” she asked.
“Besides tanking the exam?” I said.
“You still haven’t figured out how to get rid of the raven, have you?”
“It’s not following me.”
She looked at me, then turned and pointed out the window, where the raven was perched, staring inside. I had to admit that was kind of freaky. We sat and ate silently for a few minutes, and I kept glancing sideways out the window, where the raven remained.
“Okay, fine. It’s creepy. What do you propose I do?” I asked.
She laughed.
“What? What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You can’t do anything. The raven will follow you until the bad thing that’s meant to happen to you happens,” she said, slurping her drink.
I tried to decide if I really believed all this craziness. I don’t believe in superstition. It’s ridiculous.
“Wait a minute. So failing my chem. Exam wasn’t the worst thing to happen to me today? It gets worse?” My pizza had suddenly lost all appeal. “Great. What a Friday.”
“C’mon. You really think in the grand scheme of things that how you did on one little exam will be important enough for the messenger of death? Do you know how many ravens would be flying around this campus if they foretold academic failures?”
“Woah, woah, woah. Death?! Messenger of death? You never said anything about that before. You’re telling me I’m about to die. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You’re some angel of death or something?” I look around. “Can anyone else see you? Are you just some illusion? Are you even real?”
A piece of sausage caught in my throat and I coughed. Great. “It’s happening now, isn’t it? I’m about to choke on this pizza and die, aren’t I? Oh, God.”
She held out a napkin. “Just cough it out. Here, take the napkin. If I were some angel of death, would I be able to hand you a napkin? Here, touch my hand. I’m real. You scientists need proof, right?”
But I noticed she wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t laughing. I had hit on something. “I am going to die. You haven’t exactly denied it, have you?”
“I’m a theater major, not a psychic. I don’t know if you’re going to die or not. But I can tell you that I am real, that I am not an angel of death, and you are not going to choke on your pizza and die.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked between coughs. I was feeling faint and short of breath.
“For one thing, you’re talking. You’re not choking if you’re talking. And second, I know CPR. Now take some deep breaths, drink your Coke, and settle down. You look like an idiot.” She blew me a kiss.
I blushed and looked down at my pizza. Damn, she sure was cute, and I smiled, but since I was looking down, I didn’t think she saw me.
As we talked, my eyes widened, and I looked at the girl – still not knowing her name, but feeling like we now knew each other too well for me to just ask.
She had gathered all our junk onto the tray and took a step toward me. As she stood at the garbage can, she said, “Hey, let’s go to your place.”
I paused, processing her words. Did she really just say what I thought she said?
“Well,” she said, “grab your backpack. Let’s go.”
I watched her take a few steps before grabbing my backpack and rushing to catch up.
Once outside, I noticed the raven again.
When I caught up to her, I remembered. “Oh, um, we can’t. I locked myself out.”
She giggled. “Wouldn’t it be funny if your place burned down, but you were saved because you forgot your keys?” She turned, taking hold of both my hands. “I mean, what if something you normally would consider to be the worst thing to happen – would turn out to save your life?”
As she spoke, she waved her hands around, and, since she was still holding my hands, waved my hands around. My backpack slipped off my shoulder and I had to – reluctantly – let go of her hands to fix it.
When she reached the bus stop, she stopped.
“Now you need to lead. I’ve never been to your place before, you know.”
“I thought you watched me run down the street to catch the bus,” I said.
“I know your place is that way,” she pointed down the street, “but I didn’t watch you come out of your place.”
As we walked, I tried to figure out a way to find out her name before we reached my place. She slipped her hand into mine.
“Do you want to go out with me tonight?” I asked.
“On one condition,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Will you just ask me what my name is, already?”
I stammered. “I was. I mean I, I, what.”
She faced me and put her index finger on my mouth. Then she dropped her hand to her sides.
I took a deep breath. “Hi, I’m Dave. And you are?”
“Nice to meet you, Dave. My name’s Raven.”
Silence. The raven cawed above. A car drove by. Theater girl, umm, Raven, stood staring at me with wide, expectant eyes, not laughing, not smiling, just waiting.
“Look, I have to go right now,” she said suddenly. “Why don’t I meet you later?”
“Umm, yeah. Okay. See you then,” I said, confused.
Before she left, she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

I heard a caw and looked up. On a tree across the street sat the raven, waiting for something, seemingly watching me. I’m acting paranoid, I thought. A messenger of death? Bull. But still, it was kind of strange. I was about two blocks from my apartment, and just in case it didn’t know where I lived, I didn’t want it to find me. I decided to try to lose the bird.

So that’s how I found myself hiding in a doorway with a piece of wood jabbing into my back. Standing there, raven still out of sight, I let my backpack slip to the ground and I slid off my bright red jacket. I jammed it into my backpack and continued. I stayed near the houses, getting into the adventure. I felt like a spy or mercenary, crouching under windows and standing with my back against the wall, peeking around corners. Getting home without being followed by this bird became a game, a mission, and I got back to the apartment invigorated. Messenger of death, my ass. What could the raven do to me anyhow? I haven’t heard of any deaths on campus by ravens soaring down and stabbing students with their beaks. I had nothing to be afraid of. I mean, I may have to retake Organic Chemistry this summer, but if I have just escaped death, then does it really matter?
I got to my apartment and checked the door. It was locked. I sat on the steps on the side of the house.
A messenger of death, I realized, is not the same as the cause of death. She never said the raven would kill me; just that it followed me around because I was about to die. Man, that sucks. I wonder. Would it come closer when I’m doing something more likely to kill me, and distance itself when I’m relatively safe? Could I use this to my advantage? And if it comes and perches itself on my shoulder, then is that a good time for me to say goodbye and accept my impending doom?
I don’t want to die. I don’t want to have wasted my last living days studying for and taking a sucky O. chem exam. If I die the week after finals, after partying and getting drunk every night and eating pizza for breakfast and hanging out with my friends until it’s time to go home for break, fine. That would be a way to go. But stuck in the library for days on end, taking breaks by having pizza with study groups. And why didn’t that do any good? Why did I still completely blank out? Damn.
I heard a jingle, a newly familiar jingle, and looked around to find its source. Walking up the sidewalk next door, wearing her keychain on her hip, was theater girl – umm, Raven.
As I watched her pull out the keychain and approach the door, I finally realized what an idiot I had been – and how incredibly hot she was.
I jogged to her, calling her and getting her to stop before she got to the door.
“So what’s its name?” I said.
“Who’s name?” she asked.
“Who do you think?”
“The raven’s?”
“Yeah. What’s its name?”
After a pause, she said, “Nate. Or Kate, I don’t know which. It responds to either one.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? It’s your pet, isn’t it?” I wasn’t sure yet if I was angry or amused, and decided I would keep talking and asking questions until I figured it out.
“No, actually, it’s not my pet. It’s more like an experiment.”
“What do you mean?”
“I grew up with dogs, so I know a thing or two about training animals. And then in my psych class last semester we were talking about classical conditioning, so as part of an assignment, I decided to try to train the bird to follow me around.”
“So it’s not your pet?” I asked.
“No. I’ve conditioned it to follow me around when I’ve got these granola bars with me, but that’s it. Usually it just wanders around. I summon it by leaving a granola bar outside my bedroom window the night before.”
I started walking, and she accompanied me.
“So why would you summon it?”
“So you want to hang out at my place?” she asked.
“You live next door to me?”
She smiled, then grabbed my hand and led me inside.
“I lied,” she said when we got inside and sat down with two glasses of ice water.
“No kidding,” I said, trying to get comfortable leaning against the beaded blanket covering her couch.
She took off her shoes and rested her feet on my lap, which made her skirt slide up to her knees. After drinking some water and setting the glass on the red, yellow, and purple mosaic coffee table, I absently set my hand on her shins and enjoyed the smoothness of her legs.
“So what did you lie about?” I asked. “Besides saying you don’t know where I live.”
“The bird hasn’t been following you all day. I’ve just been making you think it has so I can see your reaction,” she said.
“Why would you do that?”
“You’ll see soon enough.” She smiled.
“Oh, c’mon,” I said, sliding my hand up to her knee. She didn’t stop me.
“I’m writing a play. It’ll be performed at the end of the semester.”
“So what’s this play about?”
“About people’s superstitions. I’ve been doing this experiment all semester, where I get people to think they’re being followed. And then I hang out with them and see how they react.”
“So I’ve just been some psych experiment?” I asked, suddenly feeling every bead press into my back and legs.
“No, not exactly. I just thought I’d finally get to meet you,” she said, sliding up next to me.
I leaned forward, resting my chin on my fists. I felt like such an idiot. Here she was, using me as an experiment, as material for a play, while I kept thinking about how cool she was, and how hot, and how we could just talk and talk for hours. I sighed.
Suddenly, she pushed me back, threw her leg over me, and straddled me. She looked me in the eyes and laughed.
“You’re pretty dense, aren’t you? Apparently, I do have to throw myself at you for you to get the message.” She leaned in and kissed me.
As I kissed her back, I made the realization that in the end, the raven was foreboding death – the death of my loneliness.