Week 2 - “The Crow”
When I was ten, a crow fell in my backyard. It didn’t spectacularly flounder or land, it fell; it was a young one. Not yet learned how to fly. Its parents dropped it. I was the first to find it; it was lying on an area of bricks we had paved. Out of the expanse of grass it could’ve been, it fell on those bricks. That got me. It had its wings laid out. The sun was reflecting off its dark feathers, making it glimmer. Like something meant to be found. I stared at it from a distance for quite a while. This was an act I was accustomed to. Forlorn gazing, stiff body, rampant mind. I was vainly aware at the time that if my parents were present, they would be disappointed. I moved closer. Waited for a reaction, alarm at my presence, recognition, and it—. It twitched its beak. It made a clicking sound, so small, but there. Closer now. Its blue eye stared at me, dilated. Flitting around uneasily. I ran inside.
An indifferent animal control officer would arrive later, with an answer equal to his pay. I would eventually recognize his pity and the jaded edge to his tone but at the moment I’d felt resentment. He hadn’t taken a long enough look, held it between rough hands. An amateur posing in uniform. Children have harsh thoughts. Or maybe they’re optimistic and overly caring for this ideal. Either way, my morale steeled after his examination. I would approach the crow myself. Gauge its chances of survival. As I did, I remembered field guides on birds. The differences, and misconceptions, between ravens and crows. I would use this knowledge for further use; its necessities, its personality, its form and shape. A pragmatic approach to bird-care. Only at the moment I bent down next to it, I forgot everything I’d learned. It was clicking, attempting to communicate one thing over and over. I couldn’t understand. But then it changed its tactic; it tucked its wings in, allowing me to pick it up from around its body. I could feel the bones, so close underneath my fingers. It freaked me out, momentarily, that there were tiny organs squishing around under its downy feathers. It must’ve sensed this. The ebb and flow of fear. However, too exhausted to react, it slackened in my grip. I felt the urgency then that maybe aliens feel: to respect something foreign.
Over the course of weeks, I was insistent overseeing the crow. I had gained its trust; it would rest in my lap, or on my arm, placidly, looking out to the fence. Every day, it would stretch its wings and hop beside it. I’d examine this behind windows. On cold nights, it would tuck away into a crate with a blanket over the top. I can see now its eyes when this would happen, that glaze of anxiety. At one point, I thought it would simply refuse to leave, and I’d have a familiar keep me from harm. In that unlikely scenario I would be able to keep it safe. However, children are extremely perceptive, and I knew, indirectly, I would have to let it go. There was only the nagging feeling that I wouldn’t know when.
Until—clockwork. It wasn’t in the backyard. I knew this because I could hear it on the other side of the fence, down by the creek. The pitiful noises. I’d tried to infer what’d happened. It’d flown, but it’d fallen, and some animal had gotten to it. A cat, likely. One of the neighbors had three. My instinct was to push off the fence and over to find it. I was stopped from doing this by my parents for obvious reasons. Laying in bed that night I understood it for the better. At some point before this, I had read and seen Watership Down. The visual of fervent rabbits pressing together somewhere underground, eyes white and turned upwards, plagued me. Only now, with this new context, I thought about the crow. I thought, importantly, about how I would find it. Lame, blue eyes, pale and unfocused. The rabbit eyes. An angry ache set in. It hadn’t learned fast enough. How wickedly unfair. My conflicting nihilism manifested afterwards.
There is, imperceptibly, a stasis between ‘existence’ and ‘nonexistence’, where things live and things die, where there is nothing and it’s almost comforting. And there’s an even slighter chance to come from that nothing into life and death. I wondered at the time if the crow could understand this; if it cared about the moral quandaries. If, put aside from humanity’s desperation for self preservation, it understood the shortness of its life. I wondered if it was alright with this. I want to believe so. I too consider this. The complexities of life and death. In those anxiety inducing moments, the solution is as follows: I’m here, in the in-between, and it is good.
