Two Ghosts & A Raven Girl
It doesn’t start here but the memory is fading fast. I’m with B at the house of an old acquaintance. There are craft supplies everywhere; colored paper, glitter tubes, vases, tiny brown bottles and drawers full of more. She’s running a successful business selling framed butterfly’s. She directs our attention to the filthy couch, pointing out with pride her new “vegan” blanket. I want to object to such an asinine concept but stop short noticing how filthy everything is. She has a giant fluffy Old English Sheep dog that runs around and on top of everything. As she prepares two deserts I pick up a magazine and flip through an photo art based editorial featuring perfectly hip looking bundles of sticks and pine needles in white bowls featuring one sparkling Czech crystal. I’m annoyed at how simple it is and that I didn’t think of it and that its in a magazine at all. She takes one of the deserts out of the oven, cut into it and it’s entire insides spill all over the counter so we opt to eat the brownie cake. We decide it’s time to move on and end up in a very open forest. As we cross the fable style bridge B put his hand out to a raven who perches on him for a moment. It flies off and lands right behind me so I reach my hand out to it. A black gloved human hand touches mine, and I look up to see a girl of maybe 20 in a very elaborate bird costume. She’s acting just like a bird and has me convinced until I remember her hand and say “you’re not a crow”. She becomes upset and backs up slowly. She lays back, always looking at me, and begins to take off her feathered pants. It looks either painful or painstaking but as she removes them I notice patterns on her skin that reflect exactly the feathers she’s removing. I look to see if anyone else has noticed when I realize the entire forest floor is covered with girls in various states of costume. One is looking right at me, slowly playing with a knife giving me a menacing glare. I have to pass by her on the path and worry she’ll attack but she never rises. Is this a mental institution? Everyone seems so aggressive yet completely void of intent. This is where I wake for a moment, I get out of my bed with my blanket and start walking down a cement path bordered by trees and the odd street light. I’m around a corner when B calls out for me to come back. I turn around and get into bed. I’m almost asleep when someone bounds up onto the bed over me and straddles B. It’s an older woman, she’s completely naked, straddling Brad and looking right at him, not saying anything but moving so oddly, so sad and somewhat desperate. I’m shocked, not even quite scared I look to him and ask “do you know her?” Unfazed he says “Yes, I do, I found her” At this point we both shift her off of him so she’s slumped against the foot board facing us, her legs still strewn over mine. “Where?” I ask looking at him. His voice trembles as he says ”She was killed” and I look to see her black tongue hanging out of her battered face, her head wobbling like a zombie. B points to the floor beside me and there lies another man, on top of an oversize toy box, battered and dead.










