Go to the Guidance Counsilor: Bird Driving

Describe a long car ride with a proud blackbird who receives a box with airholes punched in it.

There were a few scenarios that I'd drawn up for my life at this point. Honestly, this never came up. Not even when I was high as a kite with my shiftless college buddies. Not even in my most delirious fever dreams.

The bird and I had driven for so long through the American mid-west that my perception of time and space felt like a melting reactor core; white hot and dripping through every barrier it met. Denser than a dying star.

Mountains had been a nice change of pace, though. I'd never really gotten to see a proper mountain, having grown up west of the Appalachian range in the care of parents who had no sense of adventure. I was making up for it in spades these days.

The Rockies gave way to sand and desolation, and that's when the bird spoke again.

"I have gone so far. So very far. You do well," Raven croaked.

A lot of people don't know this, but ravens are goddamn smart. Yeah, they can talk too. Their voices are deep and tinged with gravel. The big bird stood as it always had against the back rest of my passenger seat. In front of it was a cardboard box, like a shoebox for a size 9 or 10, only the sides were blank and always had been. Six holes on the long sides, one on the short. Not ragged, like they'd been stabbed (or pecked) into the box carelessly. The edges were smooth and deliberate, with the zig-zagging insulation cut clean as you please. Sometimes the box moved when I had to stop quicker than I wanted to. Sometimes it moved when I was at a dead stop. Either way, the bird nudged it back into place with the crown of its skull.

Now that he was talking, maybe we could address the elephant in the room.

"Where are we going?"

"You do well," said Raven.

West then. In Oklahoma I had turned south, towards Texas. Raven took offense, flapping furiously until I angled my car west once more. Embarrassing as hell, I have only the vaguest idea of what cities and landmarks might lie directly in front of me. But geography wiz that I am, I did know that we'd eventually get to the coast; where the roads stopped and there wasn't a Wal-Mart in sight.

"What's in the box?"

"Gift."

My body seized up from my ass to my throat. Little bastard, he'd just gone and thickened the plot after all this time. I bet my ass he won't have another word to spare on his chauffeur. Shake on it?

"A gift for who?" I say. I should have said "whom", right? Nah, screw it.

Raven said nothing. Instead, he hopped up on the rim of my open window, defecated, and returned to his seat. I wonder what would have happened if I'd gone for the automatic windows.

"Eyes. A gift for me," croaked Raven.

Oh.

We're heading towards one of those big clover cluster-fucks where ramps and merges loop like some kind of Gaelic symbol. I keep straight ahead, never moving to leave the interstate.

"I do well?" I asked Raven.

"You do well," he croaked.

We drive on.