The sun shone down dimly beneath the grey clouds, causing a chilly breeze to form in the sky, which there flew a flock of ravens; and a small and fragile raven flew at the end, its beak hanging open strangely as it gasped for much needed breath.

Two ravens kept glancing back, keeping watch on the smaller raven. Their beady eyes were clouded with worry, and they cawed restlessly. The smaller raven, it seemed, had just learned to fly recently, and tried to call its parents back, but all it could do was choke even more that it already was.

The small raven suddenly felt weak and dizzy, and so started gasping even more for oxygen; but no avail, for it could not close its beak, and lost a great amount of breath. Before it could gasp for a second breath, it realized that had been its last.

Wailing for the last time, a single tear fell from its beady black eyes, wetting its feathers slightly. Thinking about never seeing its family or to never feel the wind in its feathers ever again caused pain to build up in its chest; and the raven struggled to keep flapping.

Body weakened from the lack of oxygen, the raven felt its wings give way and stop moving all at once, and so this fragile raven fell from the sky, its chest no longer heaving up and down as it made an impact to the ground, surrounded by tangled trees which towered over it, casting long and threatening shadows. That was the last he saw as its eyes became glassy and lifeless, its beak hanging open still. A drop of rain fell on its feathers, and then another until rain poured from the sky as if it was weeping at this loss.

A few days passed after this accident, and a little boy happened to pass by, looking around until he noticed the group of large crows gathered on the naked trees. They seemed to be forming a small, tight circle, which gathered around a black lump on the pavement. Curious, the boy quickly and silently made his way to the lump, and a few crows flapped their wings and cawed in alarm, but didn’t do anything else. Now closer, the boy found that it was a baby raven; and when he looked closer, he noticed its beak hung open strangely. After he found out why that was, he felt himself let out a small gasp of disgust.

There hung a piece of plastic from its open beak, having choked the small raven to death.

The boy often came to visit this very spot and stare at the raven sorrowfully; for he knew this was because others had been careless about plastic and just thrown it away without thinking. The crows stopped coming a few days ago, and the boy sat beside the small raven, picking a nearby flower only to lay it gently on its fallen body.

“Hail and farewell” He whispered.