RAVEN
Eleven weddings!
Eleven...!
What was it about summertime and summertime weddings?
But really? Eleven?!
Which one was this one again?
Jason slouched down further in his chair and fiddled with his phone some more. He had taken a lot of pictures lately. He wondered if his phone had the memory to hold them all. Maybe he should move some into his computer and store them there for a while.
He looked up.
In the crowded hall, a hundred other people were laughing, singing along with the music, screaming against it to talk to one another. Some of them were tipsy and swaying like a boat on water and not to the music. The dancing had started. The older folks had just left. The last of the desserts had been served and they had finished them, these friends of the parents of the bride and groom and so they had taken their leave and shuffled out, leaving the younger ones to dim the lights down and start having their rowdy, ridiculous, raucous fun.
Jason was sitting alone at his table. Everyone else had gotten up to dance. They had arranged the tables for the dinner earlier in a circle, leaving empty the middle of the room to form a dance floor and now everyone had jostled over to it and were dancing and pumping their arms in the air and jumping. The music was loud and everywhere. His shoes were buzzing.
Jason cast his gaze out over the entirety of the hall and...there she was.
Maggie.
Oh...Maggie!
He felt his heart miss a beat.
He reached up and placed his hand over his chest. He pressed down. He gave it a squeeze.
What if he died, right now? What if he had a heart attack?
What if he disappeared somehow, right now and vanished or slipped into some other dimension and no one was to ever see him again, not like...ever?
Would anyone care? Would anyone notice?
Oh...Maggie!
Jason felt dizzy. His hands were not steady. He breathed out once, twice.
Stretching out his arm, he placed the object that he had been clutching within his fingers onto the table. He checked to make sure it was safe for the moment. He took a sip of water. He felt better. He dipped his head down and went back to flipping through the photos on his phone.
Which wedding was this one again? He furrowed his brow at his pictures.
"Hey!" A young man tore across the room and slid in beside Jason like he was stealing third base. He leaned in close for the loud music. "Aren't you going to dance?"
Jason didn't bother to look up. "Go away, Curtis."
Curtis threw a glance over his shoulder. He knew the girl Jason was spying out and not spying out at the same time. He turned back to Jason. "You gotta forget her." He yanked on his arm. "Come on! Come dance!"
Jason shook him off. His eyes were on his phone and he was just flipping, flipping...
Curtis checked out the dance floor and noticed someone else. "Come on, Jace. You know the best way to forget someone is to find someone new." He pointed toward the dance floor. "And you know Janice wants you. She does. Just look at her..." He flicked his chin out at her. "...look at that dress...!"
Jason's eyes remained locked on his phone and nothing was going to move them.
Curtis shook his head.
He saw the thing on the table. "What's this?" He reached out and picked it up.
"Hey!" Jason went to get it back.
Curtis wouldn't let him. He held it aloft so he could keep it away from Jason and look it over at the same time.
It was a ring.
A simple one. A simple band of white gold. A wedding band.
Curtis went on examining the thing, turning it over, this way and that. "So, she gave it back?"
Jason got to his feet. He moved in. "You hand it over right now or...!" He stretched his arm out.
Curtis didn't fight him. He let him have it. "Fine, fine!" Curtis straightened out his clothes. The two settled back down into their chairs.
Curtis scratched his head. "Do you ever tell them? Like I mean, what that thing is? Or how important it is to you?"
Jason was rubbing on the ring, cleaning it up. He placed it back in his pocket.
"I know if it were me, I would never give it out. Not to anyone. I wouldn't even take it out of the house..."
Jason was checking his pockets.
His phone. Where was his phone?
"...after all, my mother's wedding ring...!"
Jason looked up.
Curtis!
Jason stood up.
Curtis was standing and holding Jason's phone. He swiped the screen and it came to life.
Password.
Curtis met eyes with Jason. "What's your password?"
"Give it!" Jason stuck out his hand.
"Oh, I know!"
One-one-one-one. Nope.
"Curtis...!" Jason began edging over. "Give it back..."
Curtis took a step back.
Two-two-two-two. Nope.
"I mean it!" Jason swiped his arm out but missed.
Four-four...bingo!
"Aha!" Curtis kept backing away as Jason followed. Meanwhile, he was flipping through the pictures on the phone, one by one.
"Curtis!"
Curtis stopped. He frowned into the phone. "Who's this?"
Jason seized his chance and snatched his phone back from his friend. He made a face at him and headed back to the table. He plopped himself down into a chair.
Curtis slid in beside him. "No, really, who is that?"
Jason frowned. Though annoyed, he dipped his head down and had a quick glance of the picture in question, but he didn't know what Curtis meant, because all he could see was a smiling couple in the middle of the photo and it was obvious who the people were. He knew them. It was William and Olivia, the newlyweds, from the wedding they had both gone to last weekend.
Jason turned to Curtis. "What do you mean? It's William and..."
"No!" Curtis pointed. Into the picture but toward the back, in the background, by the corner. "Here! This one..."
Jason squinted down into it.
Curtis helped. He reached out with his fingers and zoomed out the area so it was larger and easier to see.
Okay. That's better.
Jason's eyes widened.
Oh my...
It was a girl.
Oh my...!
She had on a dress of purple and it was glistening in the light of the evening, twinkling, sparkling like stars. Near the end of the day, in the afterlight of the setting sun, the skin on her arms and neck glowed like heaven's moon on a clear night and the light was soft, inviting and full of crystal, clean goodness. Her smile...
Her eyes were chestnut in colour, but her hair—her hair was what struck him the most.
It was luxury, decadence, opulence in the extreme. It was full but it was natural and simple and unaware of itself, as only true beauty and splendour can be. And it was effortless. It was quiet and still. Its richness was a matter of course. It was beauty and beauty so sumptuous where beauty had no need to be, extravagance so lavish where no extravagance had been called for.
It was black, raven black and like a tide, a flood, it overwhelmed you with warmth and if only pictures could saturate you with smells too, then her locks would be the headiest of wine and fragrance and the breath of a tenth of it might make you swoon.
Jason blinked. He swallowed. He took a deep breath in.
"Who is this? Do you know her?" Curtis leaned in closer.
Jason shook his head. "I have no idea." He flipped through some of the other pictures of the same wedding to see if she was in any of those.
No, she was not. Just this one.
Curtis studied his friend. He sat back. He smiled. "Maybe William might know? Maybe..."
Jason wasn't listening. His eyes were on the phone.
Curtis laughed aloud. "Oh, look at you! Obsessed already!" He slapped his friend on the arm. "This is so Jason, so typical Jason, through and through."
Jason pulled back. "What?"
Curtis was shaking his head. "You have to relax. You always take your relationships way too seriously. You have to remember, this is summer! Summertime, baby!" He snapped his fingers, right in front of his friend's nose.
Jason waved him off. He went back to staring at the picture.
"Summer is here, my friend. You have to go out, do something you enjoy, go to new places, take in the weather, eat, drink, slow down. Find someone new, laugh, have a good time. Summer is for relaxing, for a day at the beach, with hot weather and cold, tall drinks and lazy summertime kisses..."
Jason smirked. "Yeah, like what you do all year?"
Curtis took a drink from the table. He didn't know whose it was. "I'm going to have at least four girlfriends this summer. I'm going to have a good time! I'm..."
Curtis never got to finish. Janice had come flying over and dragged him out onto the dance floor. Now he was pumping his arm and jumping.
For the rest of the evening, Jason went from table to table and friend to friend, showing each the picture on his phone and asking if anyone could tell him who it was, this girl all laid out in purple, nearly hidden in the back of the photo, the one with the silken and glowing, raven black hair.
And no one seemed to know her.
~~~
That night, Jason took the bus back into campus. He still had one final exam left in two weeks. All of his friends had finished theirs and had moved back into town for the summer. He got off the bus and came back now to an empty apartment, the flat he had shared with his roommates over the last year all the way from September up to now.
The minute he reached his room, he went and got started right away. He got onto Facebook and posted a new update. He put up the photo in question and then attached a comment to go along with it.
Who is this girl? Does anyone know her?
Jason thought about it for a second. He shook his head.
Okay. Too stalker-ish.
He went back and changed the comment.
Hi guys! In the back of this picture is the image of a childhood friend. I have not seen her in forever and would very much like to get a hold of her again. Can anyone help me? Do you know her? How can I get in touch with her?
Jason finished typing this up and put his phone down. He stretched out his arms and yawned. He was tired. It was getting late. Changing, and then trudging out over into the bathroom, he went and got cleaned up and ready for bed. He dragged himself back into his room and crawled into the crib.
All around him was clutter. Jason was never known to be a neat person. Just ask his mother. It was easy to know everything that Jason had ever owned in his life, because everything he had ever owned in his whole, entire life was lying somewhere on the floor around him. There were about a dozen patches of carpet still visible, just enough to place your feet on them so you could navigate the room.
From beneath his covers, Jason whipped out his phone and began scrolling through the pictures again. Yup. She was only in the one photo. Nothing else.
Jason frowned.
He put his phone down beside him. Next to that was his mother's wedding band. Next to that was his beside light and this was what he turned out now and went to sleep.
~~~
First thing the next morning, Jason got up and turned on his phone. He went to look at the picture and the girl in the back of the photo and found her...
...gone!
She was not in the picture anymore.
What?!
Jason's eyes were two huge circles. He blinked a few times.
He brought his phone right up to his nose, like that was actually going to help at all, but search as he might, zooming in here and there, zooming out here and there, and then shaking the phone and then rebooting the phone, but try as he might, as he might, as he might...
...she was just not in the picture anymore.
What?!
Jason's brain froze. His jaw was hanging down around his chest. He hadn't realized it, but he had stopped breathing in and out, like he had died and no longer required any oxygen...
He deflated and slumped down onto the bed behind him. He laid back.
What is going on here?
He lifted his phone to his face to go through it once more, but then he thought of something else. He sat up.
He went to Facebook. He checked his last post.
Since yesterday, people had left all sorts of messages up by the picture he had posted, but they all said the same thing.
They all wanted to know why he had put up a simple wedding photo, with the happy couple smiling in the middle of it and nothing else.
What did he mean, the 'girl in the back'? There was no girl in the back. Was this supposed to be a joke?
Jason checked the picture he put up yesterday.
The girl was gone from that one too.
Huh.
Jason sat in the bed and was still. On the wall, his clock was ticking.
Tick, tock, tick...
Huh.
Jason's brows knit together tighter. He reminded himself to breathe.
Still clutching the phone, he let his hand drift down beside him and onto the bed. He turned his head. His eyes were on things outside the window, the trees and the clouds above, drifting by. But none of these things registered. His eyes were glass. He might as well have been blind, because his mind had become locked onto one thing and one thing only. Nothing else mattered.
He shuffled backward. Still in the bed, he leaned himself up against the wall. He craned his neck back. His eyes were on the ceiling.
A thought sneaked in. It lingered and didn't go away.
Back on the wall, tick, tock...
But that's crazy...!
How do you know? How do you know if you don't check?
A bird flew up to the window. It chirped.
But that's crazy...!
How do you know...?
The bird flew away.
But...
How do you know?
Tick, tock...
Jason sat up.
Lifting his phone, he got out of Facebook and back into his photos of all the other events he had been to so far, all the other weddings. He began skimming through them again. Like he had done a hundred times yesterday.
"No, no..." His clenched his teeth. He licked his lips. "...no, no..."
He kept skimming.
"...no, no..." Faster. Faster.
"...no, no..."
And faster and faster still...
"...no..."
And...
"...no way!"
He stopped.
He froze.
His eyes shot wide.
Bounding off the bed, he nearly bumped his head into the ceiling.
And just like that, the girl having vanished from the photo was no longer a problem anymore.
Nope.
Because now she was in a whole set of other pictures from another event entirely.
Jason blinked at his phone. He dry swallowed once.
It was at least a dozen pictures. From a completely different wedding.
Like in the one before, she was also in the background in these. Barely noticeable at all.
And you wouldn't have seen her, no one would have, only that he had been looking for her specifically and on purpose.
Jason looked up and away for a second. He clenched his teeth.
She was not there before.
He was sure of it.
If he could be sure of anything in the universe at all, he was sure of this—
—the girl was not there before.
His gaze drifted downward again. Onto the phone.
And yet now, here she was. She was here now, in a dozen pictures of a different wedding, on a different evening, in a different place. Here, in this one, standing off to one side. There, sitting in a chair, reading a book, taking a sip from a tall glass. Still in the same dress, with the same eyes, same skin, same hair.
Jason flipped through them. And then again. And then again. He was still in his night clothes and showing major bedhead. His breath could melt paint and his stubble could sand planks, but he remained beside his bed like a fifth post to the thing and stood. For the longest time.
And he just went on flipping and flipping...
He stopped. Look at this one.
Here, she seemed to be staring straight into the camera and waving at him...
He looked up, away from the phone. His eyes went outside the window again, toward the light from the morning sun, seeping into his room. His face was a slab of concrete, as his feet rolled him over to his desk under the window and the chair in front of that. His eyes remained gazing outward as he settled into it and placed his phone down on the tabletop in front of him, gently, quiet, without making a sound.
He bent his head down. His eyes drank in the picture on the screen. It was the one of her waving at him, drawing him in.
He reached out a finger. He touched the photo. He reached out and touched her, in the picture. He zoomed in, and then held her face, her figure, but the picture felt flat and cold beneath his fingertips. He zoomed in some more. He ran his hand down her cheek, through her hair, down her neck.
He sat back. He sighed.
~~~
By that evening, by the time the sun had finished its arc through the sky and had gone over the edge until it couldn't be seen anymore, Jason was still seated at his desk.
He had not done anything else beside sitting there all day and not moving. He had not cleaned up. He had not eaten. He had not even gotten up to go to the bathroom.
Another few hours after that, he bent over his desk and fell asleep.
The next morning, Jason woke to find that the girl had moved over to another set of pictures, at another event. The morning after that, another one again. With every succeeding sunrise, he found her at a different gathering.
Over the next few days, Jason did get up to go the washroom once or twice. He got a few drinks of water too, but that was all. He remained in his room the rest of the time and did nothing and the world on this side of the phone did nothing right along with him.
~~~
This day, with the coming of the morning, Jason found the raven haired girl at an event he had been to quite a while ago. It was March. The weather was still cold. This wedding had taken place in a clubhouse marina by the lake. The edge of the water had still been frozen at the time and had patches of ice upon its surface here and there.
She was outside. By the dock. Her eyes were on the water. A heavy coat of purple was keeping her warm. A heavy coat with a soft, fur collar. You could see her bundled up in it and her breath in the evening air all around.
He flipped through.
Here, in this other picture, she was seated at a table. She was holding up a napkin with something written on it, like she had wanted to show him something.
Jason zoomed into the picture, the napkin and what was inked upon it in large, black letters.
'Jason,' it said.
Jason stopped. He sat back.
His shoulders began to shudder and his hands along with them and now that he got started, it was becoming difficult, more and more difficult for him to get a grip on himself and stop.
He shot out his hand for a tissue from nearby to wipe away the moisture, for without meaning to, tears had fallen from his face and onto the phone, landing on top of the screen and the picture and he was afraid it might damage the phone somehow. He wiped it away and lifted it up.
He stared into it. He had flipped to the next picture without realizing it. Here, in this one, she was smiling at him. She was standing by the dance floor, with a crowd of people already spinning around and around to the music.
She had puckered her lips together. She was pouting at him, teasing him, but soothing and comforting him at the same time. She held her hand out to him, like she wanted him to take it, to hold it, to lead her out into the music and start dancing with her, losing himself in the swell and swoon of the rhythm and the crowd and the noise and the laughter.
Jason gazed long into his phone. His tears were loose and free now, but he blinked a few times and went on gazing into it in spite of them.
And he didn't know the time, or was it day, or was it night, when he had slumped over and fallen asleep again, with his phone still turned on and inside the huddle of his body and his mother's ring sitting right on top of the screen, catching its light on its silver, white band and glowing and growing in warmth and scintillating...
~~~
When he woke again, the sun was up.
To see Jason now, you would not have known him. His face was different, with his lips all flaked and the bags under his eyes. It was doubtful if even Curtis could have made him out in a crowd.
He sat back from his desk.
He furrowed his brows.
Something was not right. He could feel it.
He chewed on his lip. He checked himself over. He checked the desk in front of him...
What was it? What...
...oh, no!
His eyes shot wide.
The ring! Where's the ring?!
He jumped up. He began looking for it, all over.
Where did it go?
He checked the table where he had the phone. He checked the floor.
Where was it? Where was it?
It wasn't anywhere.
He checked everything again, the desk, the floor, the bed, his person. He even checked out the window and scanned with his eyes out into the yard.
Another half hour after that, he stopped.
It didn't make sense. Where did it go?
He frowned. He sat down. He bent his will to it, but it just didn't make any sense...
His hand was on the desk, and then it was on the phone. He turned it on and began flipping through the pictures. He had gone through about twenty of them, and then of course, there was Raven again at another wedding, but this one from just a weekend or two ago. The weather was hot. She had on a sheer, purple shift of sorts, a straight dress, slight and practically see-through.
She was sipping on a drink from a glass, with a slice of lemon and an umbrella on the rim.
Upon her left hand, which she was holding aloft with her fingers extended, something shiny was twinkling in the sunlight, caught in the brightness of the morning and it sparkled, like it was alive and excited and happy.
Jason zoomed in.
"No!"
His eyes shot wide. His jaw dropped.
The ring.
It was on her finger.
His ring. His mother's ring...!
Jason stopped. He let go of the phone.
It hit the table with a clunk.
He slumped back in his chair. Kicking against it, he shoved himself away.
His hands reached up to seize his head and he raked his hair back from his face and he held it there for a moment, though it stretched out the skin on his forehead and his eyes were squinted back from the tension as well.
"No...no..."
He blinked a few times. Letting go of his face, he shook his head out, but hard.
He breathed in and out. He looked up. His eyes were out the window. Outside, in the yard and on the street, it was a bright and sunny day.
Sunny days were wonderful and full of life. In his time, Jason had found them rare, hard to come by. They were not here often and he'd had to take a hold of them and use them and seize every opportunity with them, because sunny days were a gift and in his experience, they were always short, brief and fleeting and none of them ever did last very long.
Well, unless you could freeze time somehow, then perhaps...
Jason stopped. He left the window.
He shifted his eyes to the phone again, and then easing over, he retrieved it once more from the table top. He stared into the picture, the one that was still on the screen with Raven and her hand and his mother's ring glistening upon her finger, like it belonged there, like it was meant to be there, like it had always been meant to be there, like it was finally home.
He reached out and touched it.
His finger made contact with the screen.
And maybe he had always known what was going to happen next. Maybe he didn't. But he touched the screen anyway and closed his eyes and let out a long breath, like it was to be the very last breath and who knows? Maybe this was the only way for a sunny day to last forever after all.
~~~
It was three weeks later.
Curtis happened to come back to campus for something else. He hadn't heard from Jason for a few weeks, but that was probably just exams and so Curtis had left him alone so as to not bother his friend while he studied.
Today, Curtis thought that since he was here anyway, he might as well check in on Jason and see what he was up to, if he was all right. His exams must have been done by now. Maybe they could grab some lunch or something.
Sauntering up to the front door of Jason's place, Curtis found it unlocked.
He frowned. Odd.
He shrugged and went inside. He trudged up the stairs, and then down the hall to his friend's room at the end. He placed his hand on the door.
Odd, but that was unlocked too.
"Jace?" Curtis eased the door open. He stole inside.
The place was a mess. Like...more than usual. Jason's things, his books, his shoes, his clothes were everywhere. The window was wide open. Heat and sunshine swept through in waves.
Curtis had a look around. He shook his head.
It was easy to know everything that Jason had ever owned in his life...or so Curtis was always telling him.
Everything that was everything was there in the room and displayed. Everything, except...for Jason himself.
Curtis frowned.
Where was he?
Curtis edged up to the desk and the window just above it. On either side of the frame, frilly curtains hung, his mother's touch and in that moment, they were swirling about in the breeze, breaking up the heat and the brightness of the morning, which kept inserting itself from the outside world.
And yet the morning, the sunshine, the heat and the curtains billowing, all of these details were lost on Curtis, as his eyes had become locked on just one thing, one object, squatting on the tabletop like a sentry.
Jason's phone.
He had left it behind.
Still connected to its charger.
It was connected to its charger and hooked up to a stand, so it could sit on the table by itself. It appeared Jason had been taking selfies.
Curtis picked it up. He swiped it.
Password.
Curtis looked up. He thought about it for a moment. He bent his head again.
Four-four-four-four. He tapped it in.
It unlocked.
The phone went straight into its gallery files.
Pictures, pictures and more pictures.
Curtis began flipping through them. He recognized nearly all of them. They were the weddings that the two of them had gone to together over the summer, all eleven of them.
See, there they were! Especially this one. This was the wedding in which he had tried to get him to forget about Maggie.
He began to flip through the pictures.
He stopped.
A sharp intake of breath.
But that's not right. She wasn't there. She was not in that wedding...!
In the picture in Curtis' hand was a smiling Jason standing out on a balcony, but he wasn't alone. Someone was there with him. She was standing with him. She was holding his hand. She was smiling too. The two were gazing into each other's eyes and the look on Jason's face...
Curtis hadn't seen his friend that happy for the longest time.
Curtis knew the girl. Well, not her name, of course. But he knew her from the picture that they had both studied at the same wedding, the girl that Jason had become obsessed with from the moment he had first laid eyes on her.
She had on a purple dress that sparkled and her hair was full and wonderful and was black like the night, or the keys on a piano, or space or magic or a raven.
Curtis went to the next picture.
Here, they kissed.
Curtis frowned.
And wasn't it strange? How pictures were a window in time and they always took one moment and froze it and having captured it, they always made it seem that for as long as there were people to stare into them, then that one moment in time would last forever?
Here, in this picture, in this moment, Jason was happy and at peace and Curtis knew that as long as he remained in the picture, he would go on forever and be at peace, filled with joy.
A lifetime of joy.
A lifetime of peace.
A lifetime of endless, summertime kisses.
Outside the window, a bird flew by.
It landed on the sill and stood there.
Curtis stepped back.
The bird.
It was a raven.
It had something in its beak.
A ring.
A white gold wedding band.
Curtis frowned at it. He took a step toward it...
It turned its head and flew away.
THE END