The Justice of a Body Snatcher
– a love story by renan goksin –
Episode Two: The Raven
He saw a vagrant raven snatch Alphonsina from the room where she had been kept out of sight since the disclosure of her illicit pregnancy and fly out into the pale sky. As the raven and Alphonsina skirted above the red-tiled rooftops of Burgen, it occurred to Herman that it was a mild spring day, whiffing with roasted pumpkin seeds to which he was not allergic. He rushed out in pursuit of the bird, deep in his heart hoping to catch Alphonsina should the raven drop her. He ran down stepped streets; up and down, right and left, taking shortcuts, his angular frame quickly twisting around the narrow corners leading into the palatial town square; on the clock tower he caught a glimpse of the raven’s shadow, its wings perpetually flickering in a wave pattern across the hour face. It was ten past nine in the morning. Herman continued his frantic chase until he reached the ornate iron spike guards of the infamous Lord’s Tavern. Suddenly overcome with exhaustion, he could no longer resist the temptation of the one drink. ‘It’s only a silly dream,’ he coarsely muttered, as if to excuse himself from his mission. Yet as he stood at the bar with a glass of green chartreuse -that perfumed elixir of fat Carthusian monks- in his hand, he could, to his dismay, still see through the tavern windows Alphonsina flying away with the raven. Alphonsina was wearing a long black dress, which made it difficult for Herman to properly distinguish her figure from that of the bird. ‘Why are ravens always black?’ he pondered, ‘I will never know if there is a white raven or not.’ For an instant, it seemed as if the bird had lowered its head and stared directly into Herman’s eyes with contempt, as if to let him know of the futility of his heroics. Herman continued to watch them anxiously, skipping from one window of the bar to the next like a caged fool, until Alphonsina and the raven disappeared in the cloudless expanse of the southern sky. Then, a blanket of calmness fell upon him. ‘I was dreaming,’ Herman whispered to himself, still in his dream. The world became comfortingly black again.
to be continued…
next episode: 3- Good Friday
