Requiem

Grief is the thing with feathers

As a gravedigger, Ibrahim was accustomed to being overlooked. People – even mourners – didn’t like to acknowledge him while he worked. Their eyes flitted away as though meeting his gaze might bring misfortune. Superstitious, he thought. It wasn’t their fault. The ghosts of the past lingered in the town like a foul smell. Even after the trials and convictions, they couldn’t quite scrub it out.

Ibrahim couldn’t remember when it first appeared, a glossy black shadow with glistening, beady eyes. With the sun beating down on him relentlessly throughout the day, it was easy to tune out the world around him. When it started to talk, though, it became difficult to ignore.

“Please leave a message.”

The voice was raspy, rattling out of the crow’s beak like a broken whistle. The sound set his teeth on edge. Glancing up, he saw it perched on an unmarked headstone, one of many clustered together in a forgotten corner of the cemetery. Ibrahim was glad he wasn’t the one who had dug those graves. He stared at the crow, and it stared back.

“What do you want?” he asked, then felt foolish for asking. Was he so lonely that he was talking to a bird?

The crow squawked harshly, then repeated, “Please leave a message.”

Did someone teach it to say that? Ibrahim couldn’t imagine why. Granted, there were some eccentric characters around town, but he didn’t know anyone who trained birds.

Without warning, the crow leapt from one headstone to another, this one much closer to Ibrahim. Its movements were stilted, marionette-like, but oddly mesmerising. Curved claws gripped the granite beneath its scaled feet, and it tilted its head to the side as it regarded him. The headstone it stood on bore no name, only a date of death – April 15th, 1994. A day that would haunt the townsfolk for generations. After what happened, it was little surprise that many of the dead were unidentifiable. Ibrahim was only a boy at the time, but the screams called on him in his nightmares.

When the bird next spoke, its voice was a sorrowful gurgle, “Can you help us?”

“Us?” Ibrahim repeated, taken aback. He had a feeling that he knew the answer, but it was impossible. For the sake of his sanity, it had to be impossible.

“Thousands of us,” the crow snarled. “You know who we are. We used to have names, but they were stolen from us long ago. We want them back.”

Despite the heat, an ice-cold chill ran down Ibrahim’s spine. The bird’s jewel-like eyes pinned him in place, their depths swirling with unfathomable anguish. He felt weak and small, like a helpless child. This couldn’t be happening. As he stood there, paralysed, the screams from his nightmares echoed in the bowels of his mind. Somehow, he knew it wasn’t the crow’s doing. These demons were entirely his own.

His mouth dry, Ibrahim murmured, “I’m sorry. I’m really, truly sorry. But I need to ask – why me? I’m a nobody. I have no power. Why do you think that I can help you?”

“We have watched you,” the crow explained. “You keep our graves clean and lay down flowers for us. Others look away, but you don’t.”

To that, he had no reply. Tears stung his eyes. By the time he wiped them away, the bird was gone. He spun around, scanning the cemetery. There was no sign of it anywhere. Ibrahim’s heart leapt into his throat. Where the crow had been perched, there was a single black feather. At least he could be sure that he hadn’t imagined the encounter. But was that any better? He had no idea what he was supposed to do now.

When he arrived at work the next morning, it was as though a great shadow had fallen over the cemetery. There was a crow perched on every grave, all staring at him with the same frighteningly intelligent eyes. Ibrahim was rooted to the spot by the gate. He felt certain that, should he cross the threshold, the birds would descend upon him in their thousands. Not one of them made a sound.

“What do you want from me?” he cried. “I can’t undo the past! Leave me alone!”

A chorus of voices replied, “You owe it to us.”

“No!” he shouted, tossing his shovel to the ground in a moment of anger. “It was my father! He sold you out to the militia, not me! I had nothing to do with it. For God’s sake, I was a child.” His voice cracked on the last word, but he pressed on, “What could I have done?”

The crow closest to him was smaller than most of the others, its feathers scruffy and its eyes a startling shade of blue. In a reedy voice, it responded, “I was a child, too. My mama thought that I would be safe here, because a priest made a promise to her. He lied.”

Ibrahim crumpled to his knees, unable to take any more. What did he do to deserve this torment? His whole life since that dreadful day, he had nothing but try to repent for his father’s sins. Why wasn’t that enough? He attended memorials, brought them flowers, and never once visited his father as he languished in a prison cell. Yet they still reviled him. The whole town did. Nothing was good enough for them.

One of the crows jumped down from its perch and stalked towards him.

“Why should we forgive you?” it asked coldly. “You haven’t forgiven yourself.”

Ibrahim exhaled a ragged breath. “I don’t know how to.”

The crow flapped its wings, then leapt up onto his shoulder. Its piercing eyes gazed into his own, and he detected the scent of burnt flesh on its breath.

“We will come back,” it promised, its voice a hushed whisper. “Every day. We will visit you until you can make peace with yourself, and then with us.”

With that, every single one of the birds in the cemetery took flight in unison. There were enough of them that they nearly blotted out the sun. Then, Ibrahim was alone, with nothing to keep him company but his self-loathing. Could he ever make peace? He wasn’t sure, but he hoped so. If it would help those lost souls, he had to try. He had to give them back their names.