Archibald Babbage (English)

Chapter One - The White Raven

And all I loved, I loved alone
-Edgar Allan Poe-

Fluffy snowflakes fell silently onto the houses and gardens on Barkley Street.

Although it was well past midnight, a small boy was sitting cross-legged and with his chin rested on his little hands on a window sill, and stared out.

Anyone who would have seen this child for the first time right now, would have been immediately delighted. Above his pale face he had tousled, light brown hair, honey-colored eyes rimmed with long eyelashes and the most angelic face that one could imagine.

But sometimes first impressions can be deceiving. If one knew his actual age of eight, you would immediately notice that something was wrong with this child. His small, lean stature made him look no more than five. If he'd folded up the sleeves of his worn sweater, you'd see the many scratches and bruises on it. But even if he looked much younger than his size suggested, it was his eyes that better suited his real Age.

Inattentive people would describe them as bare of all emotions. But on closer inspection you could see that they were literally boiling over with strong feelings.                                                        Sadness, loneliness, vulnerability, anger, hatred .....                                                               They were the eyes of an old, embittered man who had seen enough of the world to know how repulsive it really was.                                                                          If these eyes wanted, they could  give the person opposite the feeling of staring in they own rotten soul. They could freeze you to ice inside. They could sneak into your worst nightmares and keep you up all night.

They could do all of that and even more. But what they couldn't do was express true joy, happiness, or love. These feelings were beaten out of them a long time ago.

It was with these very eyes that he stared at the roof of the house opposite. Or rather, the unusual animal that had chosen these house roof as its favourite place since several weeks. It was a raven, with such snow-white plumage that it would have been invisible in all the snow, had it not been for the brilliant full moon, who enlightend every corner of the street that night.

The raven was a bit far away, but still the little boy was sure that his blood-red eyes were rigidly staring at him. He didn't know why, but instead of being intimidated by the animal's strange behavior, he found something he had never experienced before. Consolation.

At least someone sees me .....

And with that thought from the boy, the white raven swung majestically from the roof and flew out into the snow. The little boy watched the raven longingly until he had disappeared behind the rows of trees in the forest and carefully climbed down from his window sill. As he lay on his much too thin mattress, his last thought was:                                                                                       

Someday I will be free too.