Whispers and Squawks

Laura Moreno was still in the Prince and Prowling workroom, trying to finish up her work for the day because she had lost a couple of hours earlier to an unexpected call from her pro bono client. It was now clear that Judge Melvin Wright was trying to throw her client's case out for lack of activity, disingenuously forgetting that it was his previous order which had thrown the monkey wrench into the case to begin with. Her pro bono client was barely surviving financially or physically, failed by the system in every way the system could fail a poor, elderly, disabled woman. Laura sat down on the dirty carpet to lay out her papers because half of her desk had been removed earlier in the day by a surly bureaucrat who said it had to be given to "an attorney". What am I--a waitress? She knew what it meant: all the summer associates were getting fully equipped offices with shiny cherry wood furniture and big windows, but somehow Prince and Prowling was short half a desk. Laura had tried to find out when she would get the furniture replaced, but she had gotten yelled at for asking that. She heard a knock on the suite door, got up from the floor, walked out to let in former Senator Evermore ("Keyless") Breadman, then went back to her workroom. At least the Sweatshop was gone, though there were rumors that the next big attorney project would be outsourced to India. Well, they can't outsource me, because I'm Breadman's concierge.

Laura organized her piles to tackle in the morning, then went outside to catch a few rays of remaining sunlight and fresh air. She walked past Urine Park, where Dizzy was sitting listlessly on top of a bench, surrounded by his belongings. As Laura got closer, she could see he was nodding off while trying to polish his trumpet. A raven suddenly landed on the crest of the park bench and began making a loud announcement to whatever birds happened to be listening. Dizzy opened his eyes, turned his head in annoyance, then reached for a can of Lysol to spray the bird--which flew off in astonishment.

Across the street, a World Bank guard was laughing, having just seen the Lysol attack on his security monitor. His gaze moved onto the next monitor, and the next, and the next, then stopped at the unexpected sight of Paul Wolfowitz in the parking garage. The former World Bank president was chatting with a couple of suits, then got into a car with one of them to leave. The remaining suit acted as if he were walking towards his car, but after the other two were gone, he left the garage to return to his office and write a memo to the new World Bank president about how the World Bank needed to take the lead in financing the new Iraq--the Iraq that would someday have over four million people returning to their homes, hungry for corruption-riddled, overpriced infrastructure.

Wolfowitz and his colleague pulled out onto the street. Wolfowitz did not notice pedestrian Laura Moreno as his companion drove past her, but Wolfowitz did notice the unusually large number of ravens flying around like lunatics overhead: squawking like that could only mean their nests were in danger, but from what?

Several miles to the northwest, Judge Melvin Wright was trying to watch the ballgame, but he kept getting interrupted by squawking ravens outside. He went outside, opened the water spigot, turned the nozzle to "jet", then took aim at the ravens. "Damned birds!" he screamed, his blood pressure rising. He was pissed off about Scooter Libby's sentencing today. Why didn't he ever get historic cases, cases that would be compared to Watergate? Libby's judge got to read letters from people like Henry Kissinger and Paul Wolfowitz, all concerned about the case. Why didn't any big names write letters to him when he was getting ready to sentence somebody? A $250,000 fine!!!! Now that was something. Wright had vermin lying to him in court every day, and he never got to fine any of them $250,000! Still, 2.5 years in prison didn't seem like much--not for doing what Clinton got impeached for! Wright would have done a 5-year sentence. He smiled, thinking about it, how it would sound in his courtroom to exclaim "five years!" loudly and bring his gavel down on a hotshot. He was constantly throwing tedious little cases out of the system, trying to keep his docket clear so that he could be assigned some huge case someday. It was only a matter of time. The ravens finally retreated, and Wright returned to his ballgame. Upstairs, the house ghost was relieved that the raven din was gone, and carefully began the night whispers.

Several miles away in Southwest Plaza, Golden Fawn emerged onto her balcony for the first time after it had been boarded up for two months for "renovations". She could hear ravens squawking nearby--that was new. A raven flew to her balcony and perched on the railing, examining her intently. She knew what her grandmother would say about that. She whispered to the raven. It squawked back to her. She whispered again, and it was silent.