It's Still Life

The Rise of Crows

She knew something was wrong in her head when they started perching on the windowsills, and on the roof and fence. Crows, thick as blackness on the overhead lines. One two three four … six twelve twenty on the clothesline. Like worry beads. Crows in the field crawing at the cows. Gathering in the graveyard. Pecking at the shadows. Screaming at the church bells that rang out every quarter hour.

She knew something was wrong. Her head thumped like Black Rod’s crows at the door. Her fever pitched in her dreams like a mad-man. And when she started choking, from what she thought were all those black crow feathers in her throat, that’s when the doctor conceded that there was something very wrong with the girl.

By morning, the star of the college basketball team, the tallest girl in the village, was dead. The church bells rang out as they buried her under the tallest headstone in the graveyard. And the crows loved their elevated perspective.