January 30th…a lovely evening as people prepare for the coming new
year. No one cares enough this time of year to give a thought to
cemetery. Oh, there are those few stragglers who come during the day
to visit their loved ones, but no one comes in the cold of the night
except death. Death comes to the cemetery only at night and
sometimes if you know the trick it even breathes twice.

The ground cracks under the frosty ice covering it. It lunges up and
down radically almost as if it is breathing with a life of its own
into the sleeting night. Several times it comes near to erupting as
if some great birth is coming. Perhaps it is a rebirth of a type.
The next upheaval lets out a great creaking, crack into the earth. A
few more pulsing eruptions and out flies a hardened metal coffin lid
along with mounds of dirt. The frozen ground pushes out into the wet
night. From within the now gaping mouth of earth, a hand reaches out
bloody with the effort of fighting from within the grave for its
rebirth. The next hand joins its companion as they claw into the
frozen earth trying desperately to haul the confused body they belong
to out of the ground. Up she comes to the edge into the driving
sleet. Her black hair limp against her head from the sleet and dirt,
she pulls herself completely from the open cavern. She huddles in a
tight ball in the rags of clothes left of what she had been laid to
rest in. Nothing feels right here. She looks around bewildered and
trembling from the cold until her mind hears something so familiar….a
fluttering of wings. She looks to the head stone and there alights a
black crow.

"Follow me…much to be done." The disconnected voice advises her.

As if of its own volition, her body snaps upright and follows the
bird as it flies above her. Every now and then the crow stops to let
her ambling legs catch up to it. So, slow they always are when first
life comes to them. Slowly, they make their way through alleys and
back yards. Her feet trudge bare through the frost and sleet covered
yards. It isn’t long and they are bloody and abused, but she doesn’t
notice. The only thing she knows as of this moment is to follow the
bird and there is much to do. She has a sense of the need to hurry.
Soon, they are standing outside and old abandoned building. The crow
perches on the porch railing.