As The Crows Fly

This short story was inspired by the picture itself. The picture belongs to Liliana Sanches (Princess-of-Shadows) of deviantART.

Kali Emrys sighed as she looked over the hill of black amaranth, down onto a field of the same flowers. It was only fitting, right? After all, Kirsi's favorite flowers were amaranth. As Kali sighed at the thought of Kirsi, there was a sharp gust of icy wind. Kali shivered as the wind hit her open back, protected only by the thin straps of her black halter dress. The wind raised the layered skirts of Kali’s dress; it also raised Kali’s pink-purple hair, the color of which Kirsi herself had chosen.

‘Kirsi would have loved this,’ Kali thought sorrowfully. Kirsi was always on Kali’s mind nowadays, especially today. A branch cracked behind Kali, and she turned her head slightly. Footsteps padded against the wet grass, and then there was an arm wrapped tenderly and lovingly around Kali’s shoulders.

“Kali, they’re getting ready to scatter the ashes,” whispered the soothing voice of Gavin Constantine, Kali’s boyfriend, “Are you going to come down?” He gestured to the field, where the naked eye would just barely be able to make out a congregation of people clad in black. The people, who looked like ants from where Kali and Gavin stood, were arranged in a half-circle, facing Kali and Gavin, but they all had their heads bowed.

“No, Gavin, I’m not going to come down,” Kali whispered after a few seconds of utter silence. A tear rolled down Kali’s cheek, and she felt Gavin’s warm lips cover the spot where the tear had stopped for a few seconds. Kali didn’t look at him, but she could tell that Gavin wasn’t mad. He understood her pain partially, but not completely. He kissed her cheek once again, before heading back down the path towards the people in the field.

Kali watched silently as another tiny blob-in-black joined the gathered people. One of the specks pulled something off the top of what looked like a container, and let little particles of black drift out, where they were instantly caught by another gust of icy wind. The wind, which instants before had once again made Kali shiver, seemed to change its mind, and started blowing towards the hill. Kali watched the little black particles, which she knew to be the ashes of Kirsi Morgan, Kali’s long-time best friend who had been killed by a drunk driver.

The ashes were released by the wind mere yards away from Kali, and she began to sob as the black dots settled in, and became camouflaged by the amaranth. Kali fell to her knees and cried, her eyes turning a diluted-red in the process. After several minutes, when Kali finally had no more tears, she quietly stood and brushed off her dress, even though the amaranth matched its black color.

She looked down at the field, where the congregation was huddled together. Kali sighed, and then looked out at the sky for a moment. A third gush of icy wind hit her back, once more raising her skirts and hair. At the same time, the trees in the forest surrounding the hill and field shuddered, and hundreds of crows emerged.

They crowed in shrill, shrieking tones as they rose. Then they began to fly away from Kali, into the yellow-gray-blue sky, both of which seemed fitting for a scattering of a person’s ashes. She reached up a hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.  As Kali watched the crows fly off, she wished that she could be one of them. To be free from the pain and misery she was feeling, to be able to fly away from everything, to not feel her soul slowly falling away from her the longer that Kirsi was dead. “I miss you, Kirsi,” Kali whispered into the sky before turning away and slowly starting down the path to the field.

Reviews

[Wolfe Greytome]

Not a bad piece - not exactly my sort of story - but still pretty good.

[Nathan Durham]

This was of exceptional quality. It was well written and used effective words to convey the powerful mood of this story.