Best Short Story written by Aidan Harris (Year 12)
CAIN: A MEMOIR OF MY YEARS ON LAND AND LAST DAYS AT SEA
Soul of Raven
Died 1900, Atlantic Ocean
—b— 1. STRAWMEN
I
t was but the spring of 1849, five years into my life, when I decided to leave my perch and seek out the man who had so inspired in me the longing for something greater than the weary cycle of the life I had become accustomed to. I spread my wings and bid the Maryland countryside farewell and flew towards Baltimore, where I would find one Edgar Allan Poe.
My previous owner was a recluse by the name of Samuel, a poor misunderstood farmer whom life had rather overlooked. Having run away from his father in search of something greater many years prior, he was little more than a peasant, out of place and eccentric as a parrot, though twice as talkative. I had watched him over the years, singing as he worked his little patch of land, from a dead oak overlooking the property. If I were to approach, he would make the sign of the cross and growl, his zealous belief in religion matched only by his trust in folk tales. Every now and again, a new figure would appear in the field, wearing a shirt more tattered than the one on his back, though this man was made of straw. How ironic was his belief that a scarecrow would intimidate me? My laughs would only increase the furrowing of his brow, and, perched on the arm of the strawman I was given my first human name: Cain, the murderer. From Samuel I was to learn the history of my kin. My species was both judge and executioner, blessed with wisdom and foresight, to appear to men at the final hour as their knell. That was as much as I could gather, anyway, as his mutterings were near incomprehensible. Though he often feigned despise, I could sense, as all predators can, a weakness in him: the need to be heard by something, anything but his vegetables. Yet season after season, it was all the same. Harvests came and went, while Samuel seemed only capable of subsistence; as the amount of grain planted lessened with each passing year, I made the conscious effort to not be an omen of his future.
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