The Impossibility of Crows

The Impossibility of Crows

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The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. There is no doubt of that, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for heaven simply means: the impossibility of crows.—Franz Kafka

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Prologue: Gnosis

The howling wind made the bones of the old house creak. Above the sound of rain battering the windows came the scream of branches scraping along the warped glass as if trying to claw their way out of the storm. Torchlight flickered, illuminating the old man in his bed and turning his aged face into a skeletal mask. His wasted body made barely discernable hills and valleys of the blankets pulled up to his chin. The sound of the latch opening could not have been heard above the raucous storm but he turned his head with a bird's alertness and smiled at the only dimly perceived figure crossing the room.

"Soon now," the old man said in a papery voice. "Very soon. Can you hear them calling me?"

Grief flitted over the face of his visitor. "That's only the cork tree in the wind. It's nothing. It's not time yet."

The old man coughed and cleared his throat. "I thought there would be more time but " he coughed again, his thin chest heaving, " I was too slow. Yet," his wheezing laugh was choked by yet another fit of coughing.

"Don't talk. Save your strength."

"Yet," he said again, ignoring the boy, "it seems the joke is on me. I strove to live that I might know and now, dying, at last I recognize the truth; there is more to life than knowledge and power." Laughter bubbled up again and with it the coughing. He hawked a rust-red glob into a handkerchief and settled back into his pillows, his breathing easier for the moment.

"You can't leave me."

"Come here, my beloved boy," he said, patting the bed with a bony, age-speckled hand. "Sit." He stroked the dark head. "You'll be fine, you'll see."

The bowed head pressed gently against his shoulder. "What will I do without you? You're all I know. What will I do?" His voice was thick with grief but his eyes were dry.

"Still no tears?" the old man asked. "Not once have I ever seen you cry, Adán. Ah well, they would be wasted on me and change nothing." He stared out the window, watching the cork tree thrashing by the dim light of a cloud-obscured moon and absently stroked the youth's dark, unruly hair. Finally, he shook his head as if to clear it. "Forgive me. The voices are so strong and bright. I am ready."

"No!" the youth protested, burrowing his head more firmly against the old man's chest. It hurt, bony skull against fragile ribs, but it was a comfort for them both. "What will I do without you?" the young man asked again.

"Live here; the house and everything in it is yours. Study. Learn. Wait. You will find your destiny, or it will find you. Perhaps some day, you will choose to carry on my work. You are young, there is much time in front of you."

"I don't even know where your laboratory is."

Another fit of coughing had the old man doubled over in his bed. He pressed the blood-stained handkerchief to his lips. "When you are ready, the door will open. Everything reveals itself when the time is right."

And now the boy had a mulish expression on his face, so familiar and so very, very dear. He who had accepted so many things was not prepared to accept this. He must have always been this way, stubborn and uncompromising.

The old man smiled. "There's no point in protesting, my love. I had many turns of the dice before I lost my roll. And in the end, I have you, whom I did not deserve. I bless the day I found you wandering alone and empty. You are the son of my heart, joy of my life. Do not grieve for me. Your light made me whole again." He grasped Adán's hand, firm and full of the blood of life, and kissed it. "Thank you." He closed his eyes.

The young man pressed his lips to the old man's. "I was nothing before you found me. I had nothing. If you leave me it will be the same."

A few more rattling breaths and then nothing. He lingered for a moment, listening to the screaming storm and Adán's muffled sobs, and then he was gone.