YELLOW BIRD IN A BLACK WOOD By Erik Anvik

in response to “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe

“Remember that hope is a good thing, Red, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”
-Peter Stevens, “Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption”

You’re on a fool’s errand. Nothing more than a goose chase.

What are you doing, venturing out into the foul, dark tangle? The sensible thing would be to remain at your cabin. At least there you have fire, rations, and protection from the elements and wild beasts. Why in the nine continents would you ever leave its safe walls?

The cabin—it’s been your whole life’s work. You’ve been constructing and improving upon it for four hundred and ninety days now. Count the daily tally marks you’ve been carving into the door.

You started building it a long time ago—just three days after your arrival here in the Midnight Forest. At first it was only a flimsy shelter of black bark and branches, built to keep you warm and dry until you could find your way out. But since then you have developed it into a magnificent dwelling that you can proudly call home.

It’s not your whole life’s work, you say?

But isn’t it?

Yes, of course, you have been alive for longer than four hundred and ninety days. But anything longer ago than that, anything from before you entered this forest, now feels to you like part of another life. Like someone else’s life, not yours. A mere dream.

It’s a painful dream, isn’t it? A beautiful, bright, wonderful, painful dream that torments you with its rose’s thorns.

You wisely try to push it from memory. It hurts you too much to think about that which is now locked forever beyond your reach by wood and fog and darkness. You know you will never again taste the joys of your former life, so why torment yourself in thinking of them? It would be so much easier, so much less painful, to forget your past life and accept only the somber trees and gloomy fog before you.

And yet… despite the pain, your thoughts always manage to wend their way back to your life before the wood. To the sunshine, and to the way it rippled across clear streams and ponds. To verdant meadows, blooming with all variety of beautiful flowers. To the songbirds, filling the air with joyful, dulcimer tones. But worst of all, more than flowers or birdsong or sunshine, your stubborn thoughts return to the one with whom you danced in those verdant sunny meadows. She whose sweet voice was better than birdsong, whose sparkling eyes outshone the sun, and whose beauty exceeded that of any blossom.

Lenore. Your beloved, your betrothed. The one you lost to this black wood four hundred and ninety-one days ago.

She with whom you will dance with in the meadows… nevermore.

“Nevermore!” It’s quite the word, isn’t it? A wonderfully wicked word that rains down upon you like from the trees. Do you not curse the day you first heard it?

This forest is enchanted—cursed by witch magic. Powerful magic, it is—powerful enough to drive all fair, peaceable fauna from this forest. All life permitted to remain here is twisted.

The trees here in the fittingly-named Midnight Forest are black, gnarled, and leafless. Yet despite their bareness, their multitudinous twisting branches join forces with a constant, dense, impenetrable fog to block out any sunlight trying to bestow even a glimmer of hope to this place.

Thick roots and dense prickly bushes thwart the progress of any traveler who dares venture through this wood. Though very few are foolish enough to travel here. And as you know well, no fool who enters this place is ever able to leave.

Even more unsettling to you than the plants, however, are the animals. Great panthers with fur like coal and teeth like knives prowl about, ever-eager for fresh prey. Poisonous centipedes of unearthly size prowl the undergrowth.

But worst of all, more condemning than either centipede or panther, are the ravens. They aren’t at all dangerous—they are monsters of a different kind. Rather than a raven’s usual cries and sounds, these cursed corvids utter nothing more than a single human word— the word that haunts you.

“Nevermore.”

Whenever hope dares to tug at your heart, these demons of dread destroy it.

Whenever you dare wonder, “Will I one day leave these woods?” A raven always replies:
“Nevermore.”

Whenever the question appears in your mind, “Is it possible that I will one day see Lenore again?” This answer descends like a dying leaf from the boughs above: “Nevermore.”

When, in fury, you ask yourself and whatever power of heaven you may hope is listening, “will this pain I feel ever fade?”, the only response you ever receive is the haunting pronouncement: “Nevermore.”

You try to ignore their cries, rationalizing that the ravens are stuck on repeat. But deep down, you know they are right. You know it is hopeless.

You will leave these woods… nevermore.

You will see your beloved… nevermore.

Your aching heart will find rest… Nevermore.

So tell me, pathetic child… why are you going out into the tangle? Why push your way through foul, dark fog and bush when you could be warm safe in your…

…what’s that sound?

…Birdsong? True birdsong?

Impossible…

PART 2

Ahem! Excuse me.

You say that you hear birdsong? You’re going mad. Hearing things. Nothing in these cursed woods could make such a sound.

Yet you take tentative steps towards the tangle, turning your head to try to identify which direction the sound is coming from.

You know it will be futile. The sound you think you hear is just a shadow from your memory, taunting you with echoes of a time when you were happy. It would be better to stay here, grounded in reality, than to lose yourself in the mist chasing a phantom.

But you’re stringing your bow. You’re knocking an arrow. Even chasing a phantom, you recognize how very real the dangers out there are.
Fine. You’re welcome to try to follow the bird. Who knows– maybe you will actually find something.

You take a perilous step away from your cabin and into the fog.

Then another.

Two steps become five…

Five steps become ten…

…then twenty…

…then thirty… fifty… one hundred…

You can no longer hear the crackling fire behind you. The only sounds are the distant birdsong, your own steps, and a rustle in the bushes to your left—

Your well-honed combat instincts kick in. You step back, turn and loose an arrow just as the panther pounces. It lands with a thud, dead, in the space where you were standing seconds ago.

Well done.

But that was much too close. You can’t be sure you’ll be faster than the panther next time. You know you should never have run off into this fog–you are easy prey in here.

The birdsong fell silent for a moment there, when the panther lunged. But now its chirping has begun again, sounding somewhat louder than before. I mean, at least in your mind it has.

So you decide to keep going.

You take another dozen careful steps into the mist…

…and find yourself back at your cabin!

PART 3

Here you are. What did you expect to find, stepping into the fog after a dream sound? Freedom? Of course not. Every attempt you have ever made to find your way out of the Midnight Forest has ended right back here, in this glade. And this time is no different.

Why would it be? My enchantment… I mean, the witch’s enchantment is too powerful.
The Midnight Forest is cursed, and you are cursed to remain forever in it. This dark place is your home now, and your prison. You will see sunlight, smell flowers, feel Lenore’s hand in yours… Nevermore.

Wait…what’s this?

A small, yellow bird hops out from behind your cabin’s chimney.

How is this possible? The curse is supposed to keep all “fair fauna and flora” out!

Well, it seems you have a fellow prisoner in this forest! The man and his jailbird.

Wait. You’re… talking to it. Asking if it knows a way out of the wood.

Could it know a way out? If it got in despite the curse, it’s possible…

A glow is starting in your heart. A smile is spreading across your face. This isn’t supposed to happen.

You ask the bird if Lenore is out there.

NO! This cannot be! My demon, DESTROY THE INTRUDER!

You hear a piercing scream from above:

“NEVERMORE!”

How tragic! A raven is diving towards the goldfinch, shrieking the word you so hate. You won’t be able to save it in time. How truly unfortunate.

My beloved…

Lenore? How are you able to–

Please. Listen to me.

Ignore her! She’s not really here.

This warm feeling in your heart… you have felt like this before…

The voice you hear is only fiction created by a broken heart.

…do you remember?

A scene begins to play in your memory…
…

You’re with Lenore, not long before you both entered the Midnight Forest. The two of you are

hunched over beside a sunny path.

“It’s been injured,” Lenore says, gesturing to something small and feathered beside you. “If we

don’t help it, it will die.”

She has you cut off a piece of your sleeve. She cleans the sparrow’s wound with some water

from her flask, then wraps the piece of cut sleeve around the sparrow’s body, preventing its in

jured wing from moving.

When she finishes, the two of you turn back to the town you just departed from and re-enter the

inn in which you slept the night before.

The innkeeper looks up as you enter. Lenore places the trembling bird down on the counter,

along with five silver coins.

“Take care of it until it has the strength to fly,” she tells him.
…

The scene ends and you are brought back to the present moment.

I told you that sparrow would be ok. You believed me.

That day we protected something small and fragile, yet beautiful and alive.

Actually, the sparrow you tried to help is long gone. It was in such poor condition… and besides, you can’t expect that the innkeeper knew anything about helping birds heal.

Now you have something else fragile yet alive–

No. Don’t even try to save the goldfinch. It is just another painful reminder of your past.

Not just the goldfinch. That warmth that you feel– that’s hope. Keep it alive.

Why bother keeping it alive? That false hope will only lead you into the jaws of a panther.

You have once again heard the song of birds.

— Or else it will lead you right back here, to your cabin– to the place you are fated to return. Around in circles to the same bleak conclusion.

If that impossibility is now reality…

Don’t listen to her.

…why not believe that other things dismissed as impossibilities
may yet be so?

It would be better– so much easier– to let the raven win and return to the miserable, dependable reality you’ve come to know.

Take your bow. Shoot the raven. You CAN save it, if you choose.

NO! It is too late.

Let the goldfinch die, and the hope with it.

You’ve heard two voices today– a raven’s shriek and a goldfinch’s song.

Let the bird die… then continue your life of Nevermore!

It is up to you to choose which one of us to believe.