Mr. Poe the Crow and Me

The Corona19 Virus story and how it is told and remembered, will be either a fable, myth or apologue. That will depend on who is telling the story. How they behaved during that event. What they learned about others in living through the event. What they experience by watching loved ones, old ones, young ones and complete strangers die during the event.

The fable, the myth or the apologue is the Corona19 Virus story we are living right now. It is nothing like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It is instead, The Grey Rain and the Three Pigs of Chaos, Ignorance and Fear.

A myth is considered history told as an event which happened in such a way that it would be hard to imagine it in our own lives.

A fable is a story completely manufactured within the storyteller’s imagination but may have relevance to our own personal experience.

An apologue is also a fable but one with a moral lesson and most likely contains animals as the major characters rather than humans to deliver the message of decency and ethics.

This story will only be told by the survivors of the Corona19Virus.

My story begins in March 2020 when it became unsafe for me to return to work. I was stopped in my tracks, in my house, in my life. My only companions were two cats and a large crow who visited my porch each morning to feed on the rotting vegetables disintegrating in my refrigerator. Each day we greeted each other. The four of us in safe distances out of respect, not fear in our cases.

As the months continued, crow, who I had named Mr. Poe the Crow, began leaving me gifts in return for his morning feasts. My sources of food became what Food Pantry friends left for me on the porch, as trips to the grocery became like taunting death. I am an old woman, susceptible to this Covid 19 virus and though, not afraid of death, am determined not to die from pure stupidity albeit mine or others who will not wear masks.

Food selections became serendipitous as this arrangement continued. Mr. Poe didn’t seem to mind and I was grateful. His gifts also became little surprises gracing each morning: pennies, a comb, pieces of string, a sock and one day a little black zippered notebook.

At first, I thought it was just a lump of mud since it was covered in such due to the rains of April. It sat on the porch for several days, along with the growing pile of treasures from Mr. Poe. One morning when placing some browning bananas on the porch, I picked up the notebook. The shiny zipper was undoubtedly the attraction for my feathered friend.

On further inspection when I opened the little book, ten five-hundred-dollar bills unfurled into my hands. Oh my Mr. Poe, where have you been? The cats and I examined our new gift. They of course wanted to eat it, but I dissuaded them with kibble.

Just then, the Food Pantry fairy knocked on our door delivering our latest larder. I called her from behind my screened door and held out the folded money. We received this gift today and we want to give it to you. Our friend Mr. Poe gave it to us. I shut the door in fear of exposure. Mr. Poe called out a warning.

The stories of those who died will inhabit the myths. The sadness of death without touch or caress or kiss goodbye. The endless prayers said in the hopes of recoveries. The last rites given by priests unable to place the holy oils on the skin of the dying.

The stories of fanciful cures; those who refused masks for consideration of others; those who filled beaches, cafes, Walmarts in close proximities; those will be told as fables of their own false and selfish bravery.

The story I will tell if I am a survivor of the Corona19Virus will indeed be an apologue. I will tell of the animals who returned to walk on the main streets of towns where they never walked, feeling asphalt for the first time. Those animals and birds and fish emerging from their hiding places of 50 to 100+ years as humans retreated from their Garden of Eden. I will tell a story of the fawn and the child who walked up to each other in my back yard and taught each other how species, let alone human beings, might treat each other.

I will tell the story of Mr. Poe the Crow.

That will be my story if I live. If my herd is not culled.