Filing System of the Gods, Part IV

Back on Odin's shoulders, Munin doesn't so much as stick his beak in Odin's ear before Odin starts ruminating about Baldur's last day. The great, one-eyed face droops lower and lower, until tears roll down his cheeks and disappear into his beard, and he snuffles like a great, big beagle.

Normally, this is where Hugin takes over--Thought, you know. But not today. He has something else on his mind: The Filing System of the Gods.

Being Thought, Thought with a Capital T, Hugin likes to read books. Philosophy, physics, calculus...well, sometimes an Enquirer, too. Just for fun. He'd rather peck out eyeballs. But a tabloid is a good, close-second option. Sometimes he musses a page or two, but that's because he's using his beak, and, like all truly thoughtful people, he doesn't really pay attention to what he's doing.

Anyway, one of the books he's read is about memories (lower case) and how to organize them: using a house or some other familiar structure, the memories are associated with mental images--mistletoe with Baldur, maybe--and gathered in rooms.

While the book was speaking (figuratively speaking) figuratively, there shouldn't be any reason it couldn't work literally, too.

The only problem is where...where...

Then a bright idea hits Hugin, and it's such a bright idea that he completely loses his balance and topples off Odin's shoulder with a squawk!

Mugin looks back at him, dangling precariously (and upside-down) from a tangle of Odin's gray hair and dark cloak.

"What--" Caw! "--are you doing?" Caw! Caw! Caw! Munin's laughing so hard he almost drops a fat one on Odin's shoulder.

But then Hugin wraps his wings around himself and starts to cawkle, trying to keep the idea in and shaking so hard he finally does lose his grip and crash to the floor, and Munin begins to almost get frightened...