THE TOOL

BY NEIL AYRES

ARTWORK BY MARCIA BORELL

The threat of extinction had brooded like a storm cloud over the heads of mankind since its conception. But when finally a great catastrophe came, it was not in the form of war or nuclear death. Perhaps, in some ways, that would have been a more preferable fate.

It was the coming of the ice. It was always the coming of the ice.

Mankind survived, in isolated pockets. Along with some of the other animals, they began to carve out a primeval existence in the eternal winter. The strong flourished and the weak perished. It was the lucky ones who prevailed. That was the cycle.

Sometimes the house of cards would reach higher into the sky, all the further for it to fall. And the collapse of a painstakingly constructed house of cards is a frustrating thing to endure, time and time again.

The raven, like many of his peers, had learned to smash open the shells of crustaceans that were found scuttling, or washed up on the shore. He used rocks and large stones, pounding at the armour of the creatures. At first his efforts were clumsy, but in time he became an expert. He would snap a stone backwards and forwards until a crack appeared in the animal’s carapace. Excited by his achievement, the thought of a tasty meal so close at hand, he would work all the more swiftly. Eventually his prey’s protective casing would be crushed and the juicy meat inside of it would be exposed.

There was a time when the raven was hopping along the rocks at the bottom of the cliff and he came across a great casing of ice, much larger than he. On closer inspection the raven saw that inside of the ice was the body of a man, perfectly preserved. Beneath the ice the man wore a blue Parka jacket over a dark coloured suit. Round the man’s neck was a tie, printed with garish pictures of cartoon characters. Not that the raven recognised or understood any of this.

The man’s skin was pink and fleshy, and he had a look of shock upon his face. His hands were splayed out before him and his head was only a few inches from the edge of the frozen cage.

The raven looked carefully at the man’s face. He looked at the deep brown eyes and puzzled for a while over the man in the ice, but ultimately hunger took him and he made his way back down to the beach in search of food.

It was only when next he stood on his pebbled beach and hammered at a mussel with a smooth stone that images formed in the raven’s mind. He abandoned the half-dead shellfish to the tide and made his way back to where he had first discovered the man frozen in ice. Although many nights had passed since the raven had initially come across the ice block, nothing had changed. The man still lay there, entombed against the cliff-face, his hands spread out before him.

He scouted around the bottom of the cliff until he located a rock that satisfied him. Then he returned to the ice and set to work.

It was dusk by the time the raven ceased his work. He had only managed to chip away a tiny fraction of the ice. His attempt had blurred a frosty patch where his endeavours had been concentrated. The scratches that he had caused had distorted the view of the man within the cold casket.

Although his efforts had proved disappointing, the raven returned to the man in ice often. The man in turn watched the raven at work, a look of permanent surprise frosted onto his petrified face. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. The raven returned to the ice regularly, as was his habit whenever he became bored.

The Earth had been frozen for such a long time that the change in climate came so insidiously that nobody noticed it, nobody except for the raven.

Now when he hefted his stones and slammed them into the ice, large chunks of the frozen liquid were dislodged, making him blink and caw.

After a time a split appeared in the ice, close to the man’s head. The excitement that the raven felt each time he cracked open the shell of some captured sea creature was only a hint of the pleasure that swelled his heart and set his pulse racing when he spied the fissure that had been made in the ice.

The raven’s rock had broken with the force of impact against the ice. He scanned the ground around him until he found another one, just so, and he set to work once more.

The sun set, dropping behind the cliff. Still, the raven worked on. Shortly after the sun had gone down he cocked his head to one side, listening. There came a moaning from within the ice. He hopped up onto the ice and looked in at the man. His eyes had closed, as had his mouth, his blue lips no longer wide apart with shock.

Stars littered the sky and a gibbous moon reflected sunlight onto the raven’s beach. He stretched and considered the man in the ice. The moaning had ceased now. The raven decided to retire to his roost, high up in the cliff.

The following morning he woke later than usual and he ached from the exertion of the previous day. He spent the morning avoiding the ice block at the foot of the cliff.

He found a mouse and ate it. With the heat of noon behind him, he made his way to the bottom of the cliff, where stood the case of ice and its hostage.

The raven set to the ice methodically and today the block was dented even easier than it had been yesterday. Shards of ice spun away from his tool as the afternoon wore on. After a time the moaning began again.

Finally the ice around the man’s head gave way and fell to the floor. The stone hit the prone body on the brow and fresh blood welled up from the wound. The raven tasted the blood gingerly. The half encased man, bleary from extended and unnatural slumber struggled to turn his head but this proved too strenuous a task for him. He cried out in pain. His liberator cawed back at him, then leant over and reached for the man’s face. He pushed his long, slender, scarred fingers to the man’s eyes and at last his victim found a voice.

“No!” The man screamed the quietest scream, a sound hoarse and encumbered by drowsiness.

The raven gouged out the eyes with the tips of his fingers and popped both of them into his mouth together, savouring the succulence and the flavour. The eyes were salty and soft, not dissimilar from the fare he ate on the beach.

And there he left the man, blind and sobbing, his tears iced to his cheeks.

THE END