The Birth of Crow and Mourning Dove

In the first epoch of Land and Sky, Crow and Mourning Dove were quite different.

They were, in fact, the same bird.

This bird had grey feathers that shone silver in the sunlight and ferrous in the moonlight. With a wingspan spanning six feet or so, he was the size of a Triassic eagle. This bird’s name was Horith.

The world at this time was divided into five locked realms, each atop the other like a stacked wedding cake or an hourglass filled with layered sands of different colors. The top layer was the land of Star, the next down was the land of Sky proceeded by the lands of Earth, the land of Water and lastly, the land of UnderEarth. Each land was locked and guarded by a spirit who acted as counsel and cleric, overseer and archivist, judge and benefactor.

In the land of Earth, the world was peopled with birds of all shapes, colors and sizes. Because they couldn’t reach the Sky Land, they could only fly parallel and close to the ground, mostly in straight lines without all the acrobatic swoops and dives for which modern birds are known. They nested mostly on the ground with the occasional nest in the low-hanging branch of a tree.

It was early on a typical day, (it was a Wednesday) that Horith was making his rounds. The most charismatic of birds, he knew all of the other birds by name (and their birthdays).

Walking by the seventh elm, he saw Cardinal placing the finishing straws on his nest at the roots of the tree. (His wife was expecting.)

“Eyyyy Cardinal, looking good my boy!” Horith gave him a friendly beak tap in greeting.

“Oh thanks, Horith. Yeah just putting the final touches on…” just as he was saying this , Groundhog tunneled up from underground and crushed Cardinal’s nest into a thousand pieces. Cardinal’s eyes nearly burst from his sockets in anger and he cried, “I swear, this is the last straw! This is the third time my nest has been been crushed by some kind of oaf or another!”

Horith reassured him that it wasn’t that bad and that he would help him rebuild his nest for the fourth time. Then he went on his way.

Horith continued his morning rounds. Next he came across Thrush singing her arias in the meadow.

“Like the voice of an angel, as always, Thrush!” Her sweet voice trilled up and up and up until CROAK! Ribbet! Hiccurp! In an exasperated swirl, Thrush threw up her papers in a fit, “I simply cannot work in these conditions!” she cried. “Frog is always practicing his bassoon nearby (and is clearly out of rhythm with my singing) and Cricket is always playing his leg violin nearby (and is clearly out of rhythm with my singing). I simply cannot hear myself sing!” Horith assured her that he would in fact speak with Frog and Cricket and that they could come to some sort of practice schedule. She turned her shoulder and said, “Hmmph, well their instrumentation is simply no match for mine.”

It was late morning when we can across his friend Hummingbird. “Eeyy Hummingbird, your feathers are looking peak sparkly today!” He could see his friend in profile, drinking the nectar of a small flower off of the base of a twisted vine. As he turned to face him head on, however, he could that the feathers on the other side of his body were waxy and dull. “Oh thanks for saying so, Horith but I truly can’t even reach the biggest blooms of my favorite flower, bougainvillea, at the top of the vine. I have to choose each day which side of my feathers stays sleek cause I can never get enough nectar to make my coat shiny throughout!” Horith hated seeing his friend so distressed and hearing the dismay in his voice. “I’ve had just about enough today (for a Wednesday) and I seek to call a meeting,” he thought to himself. In the meantime he promised Hummingbird that he would find a better way for him to reach those tasty blossoms and to not despair. Then he went on his merry way, thinking and thinking of how he could make the lives of his friends better.

He happened to remember that it was Owl’s birthday that day. That would be the perfect time to call for a meeting and ask advice of his wise friend. So that both the diurnal and nocturnal birds could all attend, Owl’s birthday party was slated to start at 7 PM at Slouching Oak. Come 6:59 PM, all invitees were in attendance and wearing their best hats. Toucan was deejaying and had already put on a banger of a track, boosting through the loudspeakers: “Just like the white-winged love, sings a song sounds like the singing.” Swan listened to the words and scrunched up her face in puzzled bemusement. How exactly does love sing? There was Worm Cake and Elm Wine enough for everyone. Owl was wearing his best vest.

“Oooooo, hear ye, hear ye!” The music and various chatterings slowed from full din to mostly silence (except for Parrot, who could never resist a conversational side bar) as Owl tapped on the side of his glass.

“First of all, I would like to thank everyone for indulging in some libations and friendly parlay for the occasion of the anniversary of my birth. It has truly been an honor to have such colorful, devoted and unique friends in my life. Second of all, Horith would like to say a few words.”

Horith put down the rest of his slice of worm cake and stepped forward, clearing his throat. “Eeyy, thanks Owl. And Happy Birthday. I just thought this would be a great time for everyone to make it known, you know, all the grievances that they have been having since it seems there are some recurring themes and I just, you know, didn’t think all of you were aware of that. Since a lot of you know me and share these issues with me, but maybe not one another.”

“Not one another?!” Parrot squawked in inquisitive agreement.

“That’s right,” Horith continued. “So basically, since Owl is the wisest of all of us, I thought maybe we could ask him what him for some advice. Here’s my thought: I think that us birds, we need to be able to access the Land of the Sky.”

“Land of the Sky?!” Parrot asked in disbelief.

An audible gasp ensued. Then the conversation side bars rachetted up to a blend of indistinct cacophony.

“HOOOOO-OH-OOO!” Owl hooted, to get everyone to listen again.

“Yes, the Land of the Sky. We are birds! We have wings and can fly! And yet we cannot reach the sky and if we could, it will solve so many of all of our problems. Cardinal, you could nest in the top of the trees instead of on the ground. Thrush, you could sing on the wind and in the air and not just on the ground. Hummingbird, you could fetch the nectar from the highest blooms.”

A relenting murmur of agreement ensued.

“So Owl, do you have any ideas on how to do this?” Horith asked.

Owl then preceded to tell them the legend of the Key Cloud. “Does everyone know the tallest Redwood? Well, if someone were to climb all of the way up to the top with their talons gripping the bark, there is a cloud that will eventually pass by. It has a keyhole and a knocker. Legend has it that the Spirit of the Sky is behind that Cloud.”

So it was then decided that the following Wednesday, everyone would reconvene and Horith would attempt to scale the massive redwood and knock on the door of the cloud. Everyone else would wait below to cheer him on and to receive the news.

Ariel, the Spirit of the Sky, was a having a particularly frustrating day. We think it was a Wednesday. There was so much paperwork to do. None of the clouds were listening to her and Thunder was complaining again.

“Not cinematic enough? Not visual enough?! Humph I’ll give you something visual and cinematic to hang your hat on, you ungrateful…” She was muttering behind her giant desk (that looked like oaken, blue cotton candy) when she heard a knock on her cloud door…

“Thunder if that is you again, I swear!” When she went to open it, instead of Thunder rolling in, there stood a giant grey bird.

“Eeyy Sky Spirit, so here is the thing..” he described the conundrums of all of his friends and how they should be able to access the Sky.

“Well, Horith. That is a very interesting story you have there. And I feel for you, I really do. It’s just that, you see all of these papers here? Well this is about 5,555 years worth of paperwork, so let’s just say that you can certainly put a request in, but there is going to be a wait, because there is a long queue, as you can see. Plus, I would need to write the The Earth Spirit and make sure if it was ok with her, and who knows how long it would take to get a response back from her, I mean I know she is very busy too and also has a lot of paperwork and a long queue, though it would be good to catch up,” she mused, “haven’t seen her since the pre-Cambrian I think? Wonder if she still has such good taste in jewelry…” Ariel absently swirled the wind turbine handle of her coffee mug.

“5,555 years?! But Cardinal’s wife is due for chicks any day now! And Thrush has an opera performance coming up!”

“Well, let’s not get too riled up, ok? Why don’t you just fill out this form and we can go from there.”

As a bird, Horith was naturally attuned to anything shiny. As Ariel grabbed him a pen from a different wind turbine coffee mug (this one smaller and painted purple), his eye caught upon the glint of a key…

...Breathless, Horith finally reached the base of the Redwood and showed his friends the key. They clapped and jumped. Ok, so next Wednesday, here is the plan…

The next Wednesday, all of the birds climbed up the Redwood (clinging to Horith for support) and they opened the first key cloud, and then the next and the next, until all of the birds had access to the sky, no paperwork required.

A full week passed before Ariel realized what had happened. She was rudely awoken by a, by a, what was that? A chirp? Horith!!! She screamed his name into the sunlight cascading over her cloud bed. He appeared.

“Yes, Sky Spirit?” he was wearing a smirk that she wanted to wipe off his beak.

And so it was that the Sky Spirit told Horith that when was to return to earth, his punishment for letting the birds into the Land of the Sky would be to become two separate birds: one would be the white mourning dove who would search the land, calling in mourning for his friends but recognizing none of their names, faces or birthdays. The other would be the Crow, who could count and recognize all of his friends faces but could not call to them in mourning, only to caw.