Thursday! 3-25: Gather 'Round, My Friends, for a Story

I3, E25

Let’s do something just a little different this week! I have a couple or four stories I wrote a while back, tucked away in a draft folder on my Google drive, and — let me note here there is no way I can say this and and not seem like an enormous dunderhead — completely forgot about them. They’re good stories, or so I think at any rate, and they deserve to be read! I figured I could pick one up, give it a good going-over to make sure it’s as good as it can be, then share it with you right here!

Fair warning, this story is a little bit creepy. You don’t have to worry about anything graphic or cussy, but the story isn’t sunshine and angels¹. It’s also a smidge under 2,000 words, so you’ll need a few minutes to read it. Heck, you may want to block out a little more time to read it twice!

I intend to share more of my fiction and poetry work with you here in Thursday! and I’d like to do it outside of the usual “give ‘em a free sample then slug ‘em with the subscription paywall” routine. Honestly, I’d love for you to subscribe right here, without any special inducements. If you like the story and want more, sign up. I’m not expensive. If not? Well, that’s okay. I’m glad you’re here. You’re welcome to share Thursday! and this story in particular, with anyone you think will like it. Maybe they’ll join our merry band!

Okay? Link buttons, then story. Here we go.

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A Raven May Learn

"Do you know why motels gather large amounts of power? Shall I tell you?" The old man tapped the bars of the rusted cage. Inside, the raven hopped on its perch and looked frantically around the office. Its gaze paused at the windows with blinds drawn then moved to the closed front door. It croaked out a low caw. The old man tutted. "Yes. I know. You don’t understand your current situation. None of it makes sense.” The old man sighed and pushed his wheelchair back from the formica counter, not far, but far enough that the raven could see all of him. He was bald and thin, clad in a blue plaid work shirt and jeans worn so often they were almost shapeless, and a pair of threadbare slippers. One might have wondered how a man as seemingly frail as the old man could have run a motel on an old wilderness highway, far from towns or able-bodied assistance.

After giving the raven a long look that took in not only the bird but the stout silver cage in which it was trapped, he shrugged his thin shoulders and continued. “I’ll explain – well, not exactly everything. Some things can only be learned over time, over many years, perhaps. I’ll explain what you need to know right now. You must listen to me now. Are you listening? Here is what you thought you knew. Motels gather power like low places in a parking lot gather rainwater. All those people coming and going, year after year, loving and fighting,dealing and being dealt, giving and taking, the residue of all those emotions...well", the old man's hand fluttered up from the arm of his wheelchair like a leaf caught by an unexpected breeze. It trembled as he shook it about to encompass the office. "The emotions gather. You do not need to run about snaring them like butterflies in a net or a bird in a –" He stopped and gave the bird a pointed, wicked half-smile.

The raven beat its wings against the cage. A couple loose black feathers fell to the bottom of the cage where they joined several others. The raven looked bedraggled, the feathers around its neck especially ruffled. It bent its head awkwardly to groom them, but could not quite reach. After a moment, it settled sullenly on the perch and looked at the old man, who smiled broadly.

"Ah! You understand that much, then! You may yet become a clever bird!" He pulled on one wheel of his chair and turned it past the counter. With a grunt, he moved himself past the rack of tourism brochures and the empty charity gumball machine. The raven watched, eyes like glittering black marbles. Its beak opened and closed and it made muttering sounds as if it were talking to itself.

"What was that? Did you speak, new bird?" The old man had reached the door and engaged the brake on his chair. Slowly, he stood just enough to turn the deadbolt lock and flip the faded cardboard sign to the side that read "CLOSED. RING BELL IF YOU WANT A ROOM". The raven cawed again and smacked the side of the cage with its right wing. The cage jumped toward the edge of the counter and rattled loudly. The bird did it again and again the cage jumped and rattled. Its eyes glittered as it saw a way to freedom and it drew back to hurl itself fully against the bars.

Suddenly, the old man was there – just there – one hand on the cage and the other somehow, impossibly, inside the cage, fingers wrapped around the raven's neck. The gave a curiously human URK of surprise, and struggled to bite his hand. It scored three of four solid hits on the hand to no avail. The old man’s eyes locked with the raven’s, ice blue against terrified black, and the raven could not look away.

“That was not clever, my young friend". His voice was raspy but not weak. Not weak at all. "Now. You will listen, very carefully. You will listen and be still, will you not? Or you will never be a clever bird. You will never be anything at all."

The raven coughed and chittered and stopped its struggling. Though its beak had scored a half-dozen solid hits on the old man's wrists, there was no blood at all, not even scratches. It might as well have struck its beak on the formica counter. As the bird relaxed, so did the old man's grip. His face stayed close to the bars, but the bird never entertained even a thought of striking out. "Good", he said, and smiled like a doting grandfather. He released the raven and it fell back into the corner of the cage, among a small pile of its own fallen feathers. "Now, I shall continue and you..shall listen. Yes. Most intently, I do hope."

"Of course, much power has gathered here. There have even been deaths, horrible and long. Do you know how much power one may wring from such a death?" The raven tapped the side of the cage with its wing and nodded. The old man regarded it for a second then shrugged. "Maybe you do. I certainly do. This motel has been mine for more years than you have existed and I know every small bit of power that has flowed and settled here. But — and pay close attention now, new bird — though I have done much to gather it, I do not crave it. That is of great importance. I do not collect power to be rich or to rule men or to have fame. My only wish is to operate this motel and enjoy the stories that come to me from those who travel this world. The power comes here and I collect it. Sometimes I return it to travelers and they leave refreshed, with a song in their heart. Sometimes I heal great hurts with it. Sometimes I stop arguments and repair broken love. And...sometimes…” He stopped and sighed and looked at the raven with genuine sadness and what might have been a trace of pity. “Well, sometimes, young bird, I must use it to defend what I own from foolish thieves who believe they found an easy means to great power. Foolish thieves like you." He nodded to the back of the office, toward a door marked PRIVATE. The raven gained its feet and turned to look as well, then turned back to regard the old man.

"No, he said. "What you want is not in there. It never was. I have no well of power, no device of storage. You came here to steal the power but you did not even know what you came to steal. I am sad for you."

He picked up the cage and shuffled toward the PRIVATE door. The raven rustled its wings and hopped up onto the perch, the better to see where they were going. The cage swung heavily back and forth, though it seemed to burden the old man not at all. He hadn’t gone back for his wheelchair, not since he had moved so quickly and surely to catch the raven. That’s when it occurred to the bird that he had seen the old man move that quickly once before. He had nearly forgotten in the moments after, when the thief had caught the old man outside, by the ancient soda machine. The old man saw him and gasped. The thief had started a crippling incantation but the old man gestured and the thief turned and swooned and shrunk and…

The raven mumbled to itself as they crowned the room, the truth of its captivity slowly dawning. It cawed once, sharply, as the old man's hand took hold of the door knob.

"Yes! You begin to see it now? I thought I was wrong before but perhaps I was not. Perhaps you will be a clever bird. You were a poor thief, but you will have time to learn, will you not? Come. Let me show you what is behind the door. Of course there is no well of power here! Why would I need one? You do not need a reservoir if you live in the middle of a deep sea, and my humble little roadside motel, here for so long, is very deep. You could not feel it? No? I suppose not. You believe power is a thing to be caught and caged. Silly, thieving bird. You are learning now, yes? About being caught? About cages? Hmm…let me show you cages."

He opened the door and flicked on the light, which revealed dozens of silver cages identical to the one he carried. They hung from hooks on the wall and rested on shelves and tables, each of them with a date embossed on the door, the date each thief came to the motel to steal the old man's power. Black eyes, like the raven’s own, but filled with questions, pleading, despair, resignation, anger, more emotions than the new raven could catalog in a single glance stared at the old man. Squawks and caws rose up, first by ones and twos, but soon in a cacophony of sound that caused the raven to try to put his own wings over where his human ears used to be.

The old man initially ignored the din and set the cage on a table just inside the door. Then he looked around the room, taking in every cage, every captive, and raised his hand, palm out. The room quieted almost instantly and the old man nodded. “I will have none of that, little birds. You are here to contemplate and learn, not complain and cast insults.”

He tapped the cage and the current date appeared in sharp block lettering on a plate under the door. He smiled down at the raven. “There. I have given you new friends. Isn’t that kind of me? Some of them have been with me, so long they have forgotten they were anything but birds. Do you know how many years that takes? I hope you do not learn. I hope you will be more clever, yes? You will learn the lessons of power and one day, perhaps, you will go free."

The raven looked up at the old man, a plaintive question behind its jet black eyes. The old man shrugged. "When? Maybe months or years. Maybe never." The raven cawed again, loud enough to draw a few alert, fearful gazes from nearby cages, and the old man chuckled. "How? But that one is simple! All you need to do is learn how to become a human once again. I never thought it a difficult trick, but, as you can see, none of the thieves who came before you have learned it. Perhaps you will be different, new bird. Perhaps when you learn, I will take you as my apprentice and teach you everything you ever dreamed. Or you will never learn. And you will remain here in your cage in this room until you grow old enough to die. Even I do not know how long that would take, little bird. Good night.”

The old man left the room and the door snick’d shut leaving the raven alone in the quiet room full of captive birds. After a moment of contemplation, it made a noise in the back of its throat that, had it not been a bird, might have sounded like sobbing.

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I have been fascinated with hotels and motels ever since I was a kid. They’ve always seemed exotic, interesting, and more than just a little bit mysterious. Perhaps that’s the influence of Psycho on young Jimmie or maybe it’s how they all seem to have lives that happen inside them that never quite reach the outside world². I used to wonder how one came to own and operate one of those hotels in the California desert, so far from another town, I'd see in 50s and 60s movies. Maybe magic, why not?

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1. I do have a story that involves an angel. Perhaps I’ll roll that one out in a couple few weeks.

2. I worked for a couple or three years in a local EconoLodge as a night audit clerk. I can confirm that, behind the scenes, hotels are their own interesting communities.