The bird had the most annoying habit of showing up when I was exhausted. “Worldly Crow, what are you doing here?” Did I have a tracking device around my ankle?
Worldly Crow strutted on a flat, dull rock a few feet away. “Checking on you, to make sure you’re still alive. It seems some folks are ready to plan your burial. How do you think I found you?”
“Because you’re smart?”
The crow looked too smug for his own good—my flattery brought out the worst in him. I stared up into the sky. The only sign anything spectacular had occurred was the dissipating hole in the clouds. I felt numb, and I didn’t want to leave so soon, but life in the desert was tenuous at best. I knew it was late by the sinking sun, and we were getting close to that boundary of no return.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Ca-ca. Late enough I came to find you.”
Fogginess crept into my mind. Would anything like that ever happen again? Within me, hope breathed and longing remained—which compensated for all that seemed but a fabulous memory.
“What are you staring at in the sky?”
“Nothing, Worldly Crow. Nothing at all.” I turned and patted Baruch on the back. “We better head back if we want to get home before dark.”
As we walked down the steep mountain, a small stream percolated from a crevasse. I dipped my face in the cool water. After swallowing several gulps, I looked up over the desert and imagined the scene again—a dark creature taunting a poor wanderer whom Baruch called a king. As for the beautiful creatures that came to help the man afterwards, who else could they have been but angels?
We arrived home at dusk. My father had left for Jerusalem, putting word out to everyone to keep an eye out for me. I supposed it was good he wasn’t too worried or I would have been in a lot more trouble.
I found papyrus paper and a reed-pen on the vanity in my room. I smiled. I clasped the egg in my pocket—would I ever see him again?
I sat at the table to try out my new writing instrument. I’d pretend I was Anne Frank and keep a diary—in a way I was like her, held somewhere, although I didn’t know where. She called her diary “Kitty.” I’d name mine “Dog”—God spelled backwards.