This morning a crow the size of a bear came to me. He sat on my porch with feathers glowing of colors my brain could not comprehend, and he was oddly comforting. I stepped out into the snow with a cup of coffee in my hand and curiosity in my voice.

“Hello?” I said. He shook away the snow draping his coat and told me something in a deep voice, something I already knew.

“You are marked for death Lilith.”

“That’s not news.” I replied, drinking from the cup with crossed arms. The crow stretched his neck out, a question gracing his beak.

“Do you not wish to change your fate.”

I scoffed, “Since when can you change fate?”

“Since when can you not?”

I contemplated his statement with my free arm holding my waist. Destiny being changeable was a theory that made no sense. For your life to be written in stone, every surprise, every truth, every failure written into your very being; for all that substance to be there just for it to possibly mean fuck all, was an idea I didn’t want to think about. I mean If will was all you needed, if making a few different choices was all it took to change your story, then that meant that one good thing could alter the trajectory of your life just as much as one bad thing could. And what an unpredictable life that would be. Not to mention scary.

I pushed the thought from my head as I took another sip of my coffee. Then, I finally asked him the age old question that I was sure he had heard a million times by now.

“Who are you?”

He replied bluntly and told me to guess as he laid in my great Danes bed, he was too wide for it but I ignored his size as I sat down too. The rocking bench swung back at the new weight and soon descended into a steady rhythm, back and forth it swayed as I looked out over my families acres of land. That’s when I hummed and put his question into perspective. Marked for death he had said, honestly who else could he be.

“Are you the grim reaper?”

He snuggled into the dog bed and closed his eyes. “That’s always the first guess, but no, try again.”

I thought for a second longer. I was at the end of my rope and I didn’t get here by being virtuous. I swirled my coffee and nervously asked him if he was regret. He laughed.

“Do i seem that sorrowful?”

I slightly leaned back so the bench wouldn’t slow and sighed as I asked for a hint. He was quiet for a very short time and soon muttered that he was something that grows in the darkest hours of ones life, something as intangible but strong as regret. I watched his large figure, sure and comfortable, and squinted at him as I tried coming up with words. I wondered if he could be pain, but he was too clean for that. He had no missing feathers and his beak was smooth with care. So, maybe he was love, but that didn’t check out either. I mean why would love come to me? I was infatuated with myself already and I’d be 6 feet under in a year, what use was loving someone else if I couldn’t dream of forever? As I kept racking my brain for a few minutes, something plausible finally came to mind.

“Are you optimism?”

He turned his head to watch the snow covered fields, “Close, but no.”

I resisted the urge to search for optimism synonyms on my phone and instead held him and my situation side by side to look for more clues. He was here because I was sick, that was easy to figure out, but why? What could possibly drive a mythical being to the doorstep of a terminally ill girl if not to push an agenda. I thought about the hospital visits and asked myself why he wasn’t there then, at the start when this could’ve all been solved. When I was desperate and trying everything, where was he? I swirled my coffee again, irritation growing in my brows. I wished he had came sooner when i needed-oh.

And just like that, it came to me. He was there, during every test, every look, every machine that scanned my organs for anything salvageable; he was there. Maybe not as a bird but definitely as a feeling. He got me through it all, and as I realized this I looked at him, dozing off and vibrant, and I gave my final answer.

“Are you Hope?”

He smiled as much as a bird could, then he yawned. “Correct,” he said, “some people call me faith as well, but that makes me sound more holy than I actually am.”

I hummed and drank the rest of my coffee as I watched him. “Well hope, why are you here?”

He turned to lay on his side, “I’m here to help you figure out why you want to live.”

“I don’t. I’m going to be dead in a year, it is what it is, I don’t care.”

He opened his eyes and maintained eye contact with me. I could feel him calling bullshit.

“Lilith Conner, I am the courier of desire. When people pray on their knees in want, I am the God that answers. I am everywhere, I am in everything and there is not a wish in this world that I have not heard. My name is hope, and I only go where I already am.”

I looked away and didn’t talk for a long time. I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want to have hope I wanted acceptance, I wanted to be ok with looking at caskets while i was still alive because hope was so fucking draining. I was tired of fighting so hard just for what, another day? Another year? We all call it quits someday, and it just so happened to be mine.

“The doctors cant do more. I am a dead man walking hope, I just want to spend my time resting.”

“Funny,” he said, “I’ve never seen a dead man drink coffee.”

I rolled my eyes “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He rolled back onto his feet and lifted his head. “It means you are not dead until your heart stops.”

“But i feel dead.”

“Then go do something that makes you feel alive.”

He stood up and stretched his talons on my wood flooring. He told me that he’d be back when the time was right and I watched him walk down my front steps trying my best to hold my tongue. In the end I couldn’t stop myself from calling out to him.

“Hey,” I said, he turned to me, snow already engulfing his feathered spine.

“What if it fails, and I die anyway.”

He was silent for a second, then he answered.

“You could very well die anyway,” He explained, “I’m not here to say that your story proceeds no matter how you fight, but there are too many timelines where you are still on that chair looking at the sunrise 50 years from now and I’m here to tell you what could be, not what is. That is up to you.”

He didn’t even let me reply. In one swift motion he shrunk into the size of a regular crow and shrieked as he flew away. I watched him until I couldn’t see him anymore and huffed. I would’ve rather talked to death.