CAW
written by: Siva Wright
“Once upon a time, there was an old woman. She had five daughters. All of them were married. So she was alone in the large house which was once always packed with chatter and laughter. She felt very lonely. In the evenings, she would go to the nearby woods to enjoy the nature. It developed into a regular habit. She always carried something to eat. One day she was carrying a few sandwiches with her. She sat under her favorite tree and started to eat them. There lived two crows in the trees. They were friends for a long time. They were starving that day. So, they decided to have a sandwich. They cooked up a plan. The old woman started eating her sandwich. One of the crows flew and sat on a branch of the tree opposite to her and started cawing. At first, she didn’t seem to care. But as it continued, the cawing irritated her. She waved her hand at the crow. But it kept cawing. At last, she became desperate, she stood up and threw the sandwich at the crow. The bird came down and took it. When she sat again, she realized that one more sandwich was missing. She heard a caw. The two crows were sitting on a branch above her and eating the sandwiches!”
“Don’t you have a better story to tell? We are not small kids you know?”, they asked. “Oh! You think you are grown up, eh?”, he asked and continued.
“He entered the newly purchased house. He bought the antique furniture too. He always liked them for their quality which was never to be expected in the new ones. It took him nearly 5 months to negotiate a deal with the owner of the house. The owner seemed to not like the idea of him buying this house, but he wouldn’t say the reason. He started to unpack the things. Suddenly he heard some noise. He couldn’t make it out. He heard the noise again. Now, it was loud and distinct. Yes, it was a crow’s. It cawed again. He couldn’t identify the direction from which it came. He looked around the house. All the windows were closed. He came back to the room where he was in. It cawed again. The sound came from behind him. He saw the silhouette of a crow in the window glass. He clapped his hands to scare the crow, but it hadn’t moved a bit. So, he went to the window and opened it. But, there was nothing behind it. He stood there in utter shock. It again cawed!”
“This is better than the first… But not so good for us!”, said one of them. “You can’t enjoy subtlety in anything nowadays… Well, I will try another one”, he said and continued.
“She was living in the middle of a cornfield. She had almost 3 acres of it. She was widowed at a young age. These cornfields are the only property left to her by her late husband. But it was not an easy job to maintain them, especially to safeguard them from the crows. She had many scarecrows made for the purpose of scaring them. Every morning, she would go for a walk and check the fields simultaneously. It was one such morning when she was in the middle of a field that she heard a crow cawing. But, she saw no crow. So, she moved on. In a few seconds, she heard something like a moan. Since there could be no one in those fields, she just ignored it. Again she heard a moan only this time it was louder. She stopped. “Is anyone there?”, she shouted. There was no reply. Slowly, she resumed her walk. She heard that caw again. She clapped her hands. She heard a crow flapping its wings as when it flies away. She walked on. Suddenly, she heard a loud scream. She froze. The cawing that followed sent a chill through her spine. She started running towards the direction where the scream came from. As she was running through the corn, she heard a scream again. Her run was ceased by a scarecrow. When she was about to resume it, a subdued moan came. She tried to locate where it came from. Suddenly, a crow appeared and sat on the scarecrow. She wondered why she kept a scarecrow at all. It looked at her and then started pecking the scarecrow. When she was about to ignore it, she heard that scream. Yes! It was the scarecrow. She moved closer and waved off the crow and looked closely. To her horror, there was a man in the place of the scarecrow with the same clothes. His right eye was missing. Now she understood the reason for his screaming. She hurried to him and untied him. She helped him to his feet. As he stood up, his left eye expanded as he saw something behind her. She turned and a crow flew over her face!”
“This one sounds interesting… but tell us one thing why is there always a crow in your stories?”, they asked. “Because…cause”, he stammered “They are the reason we are here inside this bunker”, he replied. Above the ground, a crow with only one eye cawed, followed by a group of similar looking crows cawing.
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