Bakri sighed, leaning against the handle of an old wooden pitchfork. He had just turned over a pile of compost, and now he watched his daughter chase the ravens across a grassy field. A breeze blew down the rolling hills beside his farm, through the field, and into the forest beyond. The breeze was cool, but he still appreciated the shade of the shadow from the small barn behind him. He heard the child's laughter as she finally caught up with the squawking ravens.
Those blasted birds, Bakri thought. The flock, or an unkindness as Miriam always called them, had settled here around the same time they had. They had become some kind of strange neighbors. He'd almost like them if it weren't for the destroyed crops.
Abigail ran toward him, an outstretched fist leading the way. She was a small but athletic child with tan skin and loose brown curls that seemed to float around her as she ran.
"Papa, look! The ravens gave me a rock!" She placed an oddly smooth, pitch black rock in his hands.
"Hmm," he commented, eyeing the child. "They gave it to you?"
"Well, I might have actually taken it from–" Abigail let out a shriek as one of the ravens squawked and dived down at her head.
"Shoo!" Bakri quickly shooed the bird away. "Crazy birds! Are you alright, Abi?"
"Yes, but that one keeps flying at me!"
"Maybe it wants its rock back," he said with a laugh. "But maybe it's time you go inside and help your mother." He tossed the stone back to her.
"But Paappaaaaaa, I want to stay outside!" She cried and looked up at him with puppy eyes.
Bakri avoided her gaze. He knew what she was doing and it had worked too many times before. "Abi, a bird just flew at your head. Time to go inside. Unless you want to help me shovel out manure?"
"Yuck! Fine, I'll go help Mama." And with that she skipped away towards the door.
Bakri eyed the ravens, still preening themselves nearby. "Y'all stay away from her, you hear?" He didn't know why he talked to them. They were only birds. He put the pitchfork away and finished the day's work.
❖❖❖
And then Bakri woke up. Slowly, his surroundings contorted and took shape before him. Despite not opening his eyes, shades of gray and wisps of color filled in what he knew he must be looking at. Odd, that was. He wasn't breathing.
They're dead. I'm dead, too, he thought. But if I'm dead, why am I still here?
Still numb, Bakri sat up. He was sitting on the table. That was strange, as he remembered falling to the floor before… before…
Before…
He slid off the table and froze. There it was, still hazy in the strange haziness of his vision. The carnage. Three half eaten and bloodied bodies, stinking of blood and rot.
Three bodies. Bakri felt sick, unlike any sick he'd felt before. He wanted to vomit, but his mouth felt dry and gauzy.
Three bodies. Bakri slowly realized that this should be significant. But the haze of his mind was struggling to comprehend the significance. He was shaking.
Three bodies. Bakri slowly looked down at his hands, his legs, himself. He raised a hand to touch his face. His stuffed head with button eyes. The patched shirt with the special stone button. The straw hat.
He fell to his knees, struggling towards the bodies. Vomit trying to form. He couldn't even open his mouth.
He tried looking at them, to confirm what he denied, but his vision was losing clarity. Noise filled his hearing. He knew that he was moving, but not much else.
His thoughts continued to be disjointed. A moment of clarity, digging a grave. Darkness. Another moment, climbing out of the hole. More darkness. The next thing he knew, he was carrying a body in his arms. His wife. Deeper darkness. She was buried now, and he was shoveling dirt over his daughter's corpse. Despair. Finally, burying his own body left him numb.
Scarecrow sat before three fresh graves, unable to even weep over what he had lost.