She always woke up before the other crows to access their
situation despite reaching the same conclusion every day. They
were in serious trouble. The empty spots on the tree increased
every week, injuries hobbled others, while food became scarce
because of farms being abandoned after extreme weather and numerous
woods plowed down to make room for new buildings. It forced
the murder of crows to live around a trailer park and scavenge
for food from the trash. Worse yet, they were often at war
with the humans that lived there.
Another crow bounced over to her side cawing out something
she couldn’t understand, but his presence comforted her. She called
him Crasher after he hit a window so hard it made him incoherent
and sometimes confused.
The humans started calling a name. “Morgan.”
Before long, chaos overtook the area. A siren grew louder,
people ran outside, and knocked on every door She recognized the
man from the remote trailer joining the others.
Some humans ran out with sticks. She flew higher. In the
past, one of them shot her mate and he tumbled to the ground.
They threw him in a dumpster. No matter how hard she tried,
she couldn’t get his body out. She only saved a single feather.
The next day she flew over the trailer park and saw a man
near a remote trailer. The front door was open. “Help me.” Someone
inside yelled. She remembered the one the other humans were looking
for. She needed to act fast and she flew straight into the trailer
landing in the living room. She looked around and saw a girl tied to
a chair. Outside, the man was coming back. She pecked at the rope
while the girl trembled in shock. When the man reached the door,
Crasher dove straight at him and hit the man’s head.
The man grabbed a stick.
Crasher dove at the man again while she continued to peck at the
ropes. The girl tried to wriggle free. “Are you a crow?”
She cawed.
“I’m Morgan.” She said. “That man is going to hurt me.”
She looked at her then continued to bite at the ropes. Finally,
the rope frayed enough to allow Morgan to escape. She ran down the
street screaming for her parents. The man swung his stick and
connected on Crasher with a sickening thud. She cawed and flew at
the man hitting the back of his head.
In the distance, a policewoman was hugging Morgan.
She flew to Crasher’s side and placed her head on his body.
The girl yelled out. “The crows saved me.”
“Impossible,” someone said.
“They did,” Morgan said.
She stayed by Crasher’s side. It all seemed too much for her
to bare again and she would let the humans kill her before she left
him. Then Crasher moved.
He stood up like nothing happened then cawed out some sounds she
didn’t understand. She stared with her beak open until he placed
his head on her wing.
They took flight. Morgan pointed at them. “Thank you, crows.”
The next day, the crows stretched their wing’s and she
saw damaged feathers, others balanced on broken feet, some scratched
at scars, one had a band around a leg, and a few were missing
eyes. They were all broken. It was a dangerous world for crows.
The will to fight the humans left her.
The people from the trailer park approached the tree. She
cawed out a warning, but the humans put food of all kinds around
the tree. Morgan led them. When the humans left, she flew down and
all the others including Crasher followed her. They ate all the food.
At night she roosted next to Crasher, but she looked at the
lone black feather in a crook of the tree before she closed her eyes.
She flew to a tree that overlooked the farm. What she saw
made her feathers tremble. A large number of the animals they
feared the most were headed toward the trailer park. They walked
with their heads up, for they knew no fear, their large eyes saw
everything and their sharp claws left scars in many crows in the
past. She wished there was a way to convince them to go somewhere
else, but these monsters never listened to anyone. She lifted off
and flew back to the tree to warn the others because she knew the
battle with the humans was over, but the war with the feral cats
was about to begin.
William Falo studied Environmental Science at Stockton University and he was a volunteer fireman and a letter carrier. He lives with his family including a papillon named Dax. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in the UK Speculative Journal, Fragmented Voices, Train River’s first fiction anthology, and other literary journals.
Art by Debbie Berk