Crow

It was just a Fall decoration: a styrofoam body, black feathers, a plastic beak, wire legs, and black beads for eyes. A crow, the size of her palm. Kinda cute. Kinda creepy. Kinda strange. But she liked it. Kinda.

It showed up on her doorstep one day in early October. No note, no explanation, just a small black crow. She picked it up, turned it over and over in her hand. Looked around to see if anyone seemed to belong to it. But no one was around. For the moment, she put it back where she had found it, on the doorstep beside the cheap foam pumpkin she had placed there.

 She imagined that it would be gone the next day, but it was still there. It had moved, though; she had left it standing on its little wire legs on the step beside the pumpkin. Now it was perched on top of the pumpkin. Strange, she thought, and a little shiver ran down her spine. She shook it off, shook her head, and put the crow back on top of the pumpkin. Giving it a backward glance, she set off for her day.

When she got home from work that day, the crow was nowhere to be seen. The stab of disappointment she felt startled her; why should it bother her that the weird little bird was gone? It probably belonged to some kid, and they had come back to get it.

She unlocked her door and stepped into the foyer of her townhouse. She slipped off her shoes, and as she turned to re-lock the door, she kicked something. Looking down, she saw the small black feathered bird.

“Crow!” she exclaimed, stooping to pick it up. “How did you get in here?” She gazed around her, looking for an explanation: a broken window, perhaps, or an open slider to her back patio. But everything seemed fine, just as it should be. Shaking her head, she set Crow on top of the TV. “I guess you’re mine now,” she said to him.

She changed into her “comfy clothes” and heated up a frozen dinner. She carried it out to the living room, set it on a folding table, and settled in for a night of television. She glanced at Crow every now and again, where he sat on top of the TV. He reminded her of a pet rock she’d had when she was a child. Like the pet rock, Crow didn’t do anything, he just sat there. But sometimes he seemed to be looking at her. “Well,” she said to herself, “you thought your pet rock talked to you. So….”

She got up in the morning to begin her day by making coffee. While it dripped, she glanced at her phone to see if anything had happened in the night that she needed to know about. When the coffee was almost done, she poured herself a cup, then put the carafe back to catch the rest. Coffee cup in one hand, phone in the other, she sat down at the kitchen table. Putting her cup down to scroll, she tipped something over. She looked up from her phone to see what she had hit. 

It was Crow. She slammed her cup down on the table hard enough to slosh coffee over the edge. What the….? Hadn’t she left Crow in the living room, perched on top of the TV?

She got up from the table to check. Looked in the place she was sure she had left him. Nothing.

“Must be more tired than I thought,” she muttered to herself, returning to the kitchen. She picked up Crow in one hand, her coffee mug in the other. Put down the coffee and examined Crow more carefully. Shook off a chill that ran through her, put down the bird, and took her coffee with her to get ready for work.

As she prepared to walk out the door, she looked back at Crow, now sitting on the kitchen table. She knew she was being silly; it was just a styrofoam crow. She walked back into the kitchen and picked the bird up. His bead eyes seemed to look back at her. 

“Oh!” she mumbled impatiently, annoyed with herself. “Scaring yourself!” But she couldn’t shake off her uneasiness. She put her purse down on the table, walked over to a cupboard, and stuck the bird inside. “Now stay there!” she told him, and closed the door. She picked up her purse from the table and walked out the door without a backward glance.

When she got home from work that day, the first thing she did was check the cupboard. Crow was right where she had left him. “Well, of course he is, you idiot!” she told herself. She picked him up and carried him into the living room, setting him on the coffee table. She had a perfectly normal evening: microwaved dinner, mindless TV, into bed at 11.

But before she went to bed, she picked Crow up from the coffee table, carried him into the kitchen, and shut him in the cupboard again. “Good night,” she whispered as she closed the cupboard door.

That night she had the first of the dreams. She dreamed she was in a dark place, too dark to see. In the dream she somehow knew that she was trapped. When she tried to move, she couldn’t. She woke up, heart pounding, sitting bolt upright. A few minutes of deep breathing calmed her enough that she could go back to sleep.

She slept poorly, though, and she was tired when her alarm woke her. When she reached to silence the noisy thing, her hand hit something, knocking it to the floor. Dreading what she would see, she peeked over the edge of the bed. Sure enough, there was Crow. 

She snatched him up from the floor and stomped into the kitchen. Before she even started the coffee, she slammed the bird into the cupboard again. While the coffee dripped, she took a hot shower. Even though she knew she was alone in the apartment, she locked the bathroom door.

After her shower, she sat at the kitchen table, gulping coffee and studiously ignoring the cupboard in which she had shut Crow. She got ready for work and walked out the door without a backward look.

Since she hadn’t made herself a sandwich, she stepped out for lunch, walking over to a deli a block away from her office. It was a beautiful Fall day, and she hoped the fresh air would sweep the cobwebs away from her tired brain. When she reached into her purse for her wallet, her hand brushed an object. She froze. No! she thought. She peered into the depths of her purse. Sure enough, there was Crow.

She paid for her lunch and walked to the park, choosing a bench tucked under a maple tree. She ignored the mysterious bird as she ate, but couldn’t stop herself from pulling him out to examine him after she finished. He seemed like a normal, cheap Halloween decoration. But still…

She looked around surreptitiously. She was alone at this edge of the park. 

Alone except for Crow. With an impatient snort, she rose from the bench. Reaching up as far as she could, she placed the bird on a branch. Feeling lighter already, she returned to work.

“That takes care of that!” she thought.

When she got home, there was (of course) no sign of Crow. She had a relaxed evening, eating macaroni and cheese in front of the TV, having a glass of wine before bed. Nothing to worry about, she told herself. Nothing to worry about.

She went up to bed, pulled back the covers - and there he was. Crow. His beady black eyes glared at her. His feathers were a little mussed. A baleful evil seemed to emanate from him.

She grabbed him by his plastic beak and stomped to her window. Opening the window, she flung the black bird as far as she could into the darkness. She didn’t see where he landed. She slammed the window and locked it.

Her dreams that night were filled with crows. Flocks of them, murders of them, black wings beating her, burying her in darkness. She woke exhausted.

She was halfway to work, blurry with sleeplessness, edgy with tension, when an object dropped from a tree, landing on her shoulder. Crow! It couldn’t be, but it was! She screamed, ripped him off her shoulder, and flung him away from her. She darted into the road, running away from the evil thing.

She never saw the bus that hit her.

Her gravestone was warm in the sun. Plain and simple, it merely stated her name and the dates of her life. A small black crow, feather wings, bead eyes, perched atop it.