Some of the Crows I Saw Were Probably Ravens

By Bryan Mills

Whether this is seven stories or one is left to the reader. What we have is a jumble of events made for a steam punk generation brought up on the flitting concentration of a streamed world. Much like life it's unclear who the heroes or heroines are. We are confronted with a universe that is just a small step out of phase to our own, close enough to be familiar yet different enough to surprise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9780244863586

Book preview

Some of the Crows I Saw Were Probably Ravens

Some of the crows I saw were probably ravens.

Bryan Mills

Copyright ©  2020  by Bryan Mills

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing: 2020

ISBN 978-0-244-86358-6

Bryan Mills

Helston, Cornwall, UK

www.drbryanmills.com

Preface

Like life, this book has a relatively simple beginning and end.  What occurs in between though isn’t always best explained in chronological order.  Life isn’t always made up of an ordered series of personal stories but rather a collection of narratives that sort of crash together to form and mould a person.

It’s not clear always who the good guy is or even if there is a good guy.  Likewise it’s not always clear who the villains are.  What we see and feel instead is a series of loosely connected stories that somehow define our path. 

It’s not my intention with this book to tell any sort of profound story, nor to make any political point.  The work is largely a series of short clips that run in my head much like someone may view a series of short films on YouTube.  Whether they find a common thread through them or not is largely immaterial as each has its own existence and purpose.

Chapter 1: Abandonment

‘Work, work, work, work!  Work you frigging thing work!’ and with each ‘work’ came a metallic ching as the as ring on his finger made contact with the monitor.  ‘WORK!’

‘For pities sake it isn’t going to work.  Nothing works and hitting it won’t help.’

‘It’s helping me.’  And as in in sympathy the monitor flickered and an image started to come into being. 

There wasn’t much left now.  Despair has long since replaced hope, or even denial, as the clammy atmosphere seemed to get thicker with each passing hour.  As time passes it’s not the onslaught of stuff that grows it’s the ability to process it that diminishes.  That’s how attrition works, the mountain doesn’t get taller nor the river wider, it just drains you.  They could just about remember why they were there, not just that they’d been ordered but what the bloody point was in this seemingly futile gesture.   At first the practical demands of holding had been enough to keep them on edge and focused but as time went by, and more importantly as promises were broken, the futility of their position weighed on them. 

‘There, there’s something’

‘Give up will you.  It’s bust.  Everything is bust.  You are wasting time.’

‘Like you have somewhere to go…Look there’s something’

There was indeed something.  The monitor, for the first time in eons, was showing something.  It was hard to make out through the cracks and the interference but something was on the screen and it was moving slowly but discernibly toward them. 

‘There’s five, no six.  Six ships.  Six frigging ships.  Look!’

Chapter 2: Café culture

The door cheerfully announced another customer.  Over the years the bell had worn a small groove into the surface.  The hardwood yielding to the even harder brass of the tiny bell revealing a pale valley floor set against the dark uplands of the door’s face.  Thousands of happy customers had each unknowingly left their mark.

Most of the faces were familiar; it wasn’t as if this was a tourist destination.  The coffee and food had a homely feel and the place was as much a refuge as a venue for culinary spectacle.  There was something timeless about cafés.  The explosion of technology had passed them by.  Once they’d gone through the adoption of electronic payment, managed the rise of synthetic organics (food was food after all) and, like everyone else, come to love translator programmes all that was left was for them to settle back into a way of life that had somehow endured for centuries.  There was something human about a warm drink and food that meant there was always a place for cafés like this and this was one very much ‘like this’.

The noise of the bell triggered a reflex and she lifted her head.  She smiled as the florist eased through the door for her morning coffee.  Looking past her and out to the street she could see that rain was starting to bounce on the cobbles.  Every day the same.  A coffee and a small cake in the morning and a coffee in the afternoon.  Never to eat in.  The café was half full, pretty much as it was every day from mid-morning to mid-afternoon.  Twenty tables in total of which ten were normally occupied, some by the same people each day, some with a more varied life.  By eleven the shopping lady would be in, it was unclear to anyone who worked there how you could possibly shop every day yet she seemed to.  Each day bags in hand and a hurried composure.  What she was rushing for especially, as she nursed her drink for an hour, or for whom she was shopping for, were mysteries.  Some customers were chatty.   The young mum with the toddler, the chess players in their retirement from accounting, the cab drivers and the nurses from the nearby hospital would all chat away.  She enjoyed her job. 

There were four of them in total plus the owner.  Never all five at once.  Just an agreeable shift system that kept them busy not overworked.  This wasn’t a way to get rich but in her 28 years this was the first time she had felt settled.  The other staff had different reasons for being there, different reasons for being too.  There was the student trying to subsidies their studies, the mum escaping her kids as much as paying the rent and the aspiring model.  By aspiring she meant that she probably spent too much time and money on cosmetics and not enough on life.  They were all different and all nice at the same time.  She felt comfortable with them and that was enough.

The routine really was perfect.  Get up at around 7.30 and shower.  Potter for an hour and then stroll the mile to the café arriving before 9 so as to be able to grab a drink.  The café would already be open but no one much came in before 9 so she had a little bit of time to sit and finish her drink in the store room-come-staff room.  There was a window that looked out