Metamorphosism » crows

Imagine

mig — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 07:16:33 +0000

A man in his mid-60s wearing a dark suit walks through a genteel urban neighborhood on his lunch break, feeding crows here and there but mainly scanning the skies for the Attack Crow, which he is trying to befriend by feeding it before it can attack him.

His head swivels like one of those big antennas that swivel so much.

A little old lady with great hair and looking very fit in tight jeans (little old ladies are not what they used to be) with a little old dog on a leash follows the man around and finally cuts him off on a street corner and just regards him, as if waiting for him to recognize her, or slowly realizing the man she thought she recognized is a stranger — the man is not sure, and wonders if she is just going to reprimand him for feeding nasty crows, or complain about it, but she finally, after standing there staring at him, just says,

“Grüß Gott!” to which he replies “Guten Tag!” and after an uncomfortable pause that he cannot parse both go on their way; the man guessing it was a case of mistaken identity, maybe? like maybe he has a doppelgänger in the neighborhood (because this happens on a regular basis, strangers greeting him with odd familiarity) that all these people now think is unfriendly or he is getting really bad at remembering faces.

Or maybe she was just giving him an impromptu psych eval because he looked suspicious or crazy because he was looking over his shoulder and up at the sky and the roofs of buildings because he was in the territory of the attacking crow?

Because, seriously, for 2-3 blocks it feels like a forgotten episode from the Twilight Zone TV series which, auspiciously, began the same year the man did, 1959, and ran until 1964, the year he entered school and gave up hope for humanity.

Rod Serling pitching his idea for the episode: Imagine if you will a man on the cusp of retirement losing his mind because of a crow that attacks only him for some unknown reason.

TV network executive: Rod that doesn’t make any fucking sense. Rod, that makes no goddamned sense at all.

Zzzt zzzt zzzt

mig — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 14:32:40 +0000

i gave the crows
ok like hang on
i got a new coat.
a friend was in town and it was cold and rainy
so i bought a spring coat
rain coat but not as warm as my winter coat
and a nice fabric so i don’t go
zzzt zzzt zzzt when i walk
you know what i mean
lightweight sort of trenchcoat looking
but no belt (those always get tangled up)
and black
but also no dog kibbles in the pocket
so i bought peanuts this morning
in the shell
for the crows
and the crows were all, every one of them,
like:
man what is this?
peanuts?
people always talk about feeding crows peanuts
in the shell
and i used to feed them peanuts thinking
cracking the shells makes it interesting
gives them
something to do but
they like the Frolic! brand kibble better.
and they all hesitated before taking
a nut
they all looked at me
the way i look at the ceiling at night
when i can’t sleep
or the horizon when i get
into another fight with a loved one
fight or misunderstanding
or screw-up
thinking
i hope i sleep better tomorrow
i hope we get along tomorrow
i hope this builds character
i hope there is kibble again
someday
but on the other hand
on the other hand
to be fair
and without wanting to jinx anything
i have also been very lucky
i have met interesting people
i am doing interesting things
i am doing things so scary i am still scared 2 weeks later
friends visit from out of town (see above)
if only i could sleep
knock on wood

Afternoon light

mig — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 13:37:12 +0000

I got a surprise prostate exam at the urologist this morning.
Now as anyone can tell you, the urologist’s office
is the last place where a prostate exam
should be a surprise.
But I had been lured there for a blood test.
I thought the prostate exam was next week.
One of those things.
Everything looks good, apparently.
But some numbers had not been good, so, is why.
We’re waiting for the blood test results.
Which will either be tonight or
in a week or two.
I hope it’s tonight, to get it over with.
He had a little trouble drawing blood this time.
Usually it goes smoothly, but he was missing
the vein, then he got it but lost it again
or went through it.
I think my veins are about average
so I don’t know what the problem was.
I’m on my lunch break now.
I’m wondering if I’m getting over
Covid brain or going senile.
I just fed some crows that have been watching me
from the balcony.
The light is weird, it feels timeless.
Like they’re tinkering with the simulation
and have us stuck in a temporary loop for a while
or something.
Yesterday at work I listened to a music album
on youtube, it is a triple album, heavy on the drones
and overtones, three hours long.
After about five hours I realized
Youtube had it on repeat.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell the
masterpieces from the hoaxes.
The music from the field recording of a
refrigerator, which
is, however, of course also music.
And appropriate for this light.

The Chemical and the Chemist

mig — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 13:25:16 +0000

The Chemical gets a call from his wife, the Chemist.
How old were you when your grandmother spilled (what did she spill? Boiling water?) on your foot? 7 or 8?
Boiling oil. I was 12. 11 or 12. Although, maybe 10 or 11 come to think of it.
So just a year or two before she died?
The Chemist is researching family history. She knows more about the Chemical than the Chemical does. The Carboxyl family, the Hydroxyls, the rest.
So my brother was 8 or 9, he says.
And how old was he when he ate her thyroid pills?
Younger. 5?
And that was after the mental hospital?
I guess? I was a little kid.
So was her thyroid problem diagnosed after the mental hospital?
I don’t know.
Maybe the thing with Amino…
And Sulfhydryl…
Was enough stress to trigger a thyroid storm or some other crisis… and she was hospitalized and got the electroshocks… and eventually a thyroid diagnosis?
I don’t know the chronology. And anyone who knows is dead, except one or two who were directly involved in the whole scandal themselves so you can’t ask them, and their kids are all younger than I was so they probably don’t know either unless their parents told them later, which is entirely possible, everyone’s parents told them more than mine told me. Everything was a secret and now they’re dead.
Maybe ask Phosphate or Methyl, he says.
They finish their conversation and hang up.
The Chemical gazes out the window. It is a crisp fall day but warmish, the colors are bright (chlorophyll breaks down revealing yellows and oranges, any trapped sugars might turn into anthocyanins for the reds) and crows are arguing over the borders of their territories.
Mellow music is playing on his computer. The YouTube algorithm has decided to serve him mellow ambient music today, which irritatingly is just what he needs. He is wired, as if he had drunk a lot of coffee this morning, which he has but not that much, not any more than usual.
When he leaves the office in two hours he will walk to the subway, past various things including the attacking crow. He thought she had mellowed out, she stopped attacking him for a while, swooping only, but yesterday she whacked him in the head with her wing again.
Boiling fat, actually. His parents had a broiler pan in the oven, a flat pan to collect bacon drippings etc and when his grandmother forgot about it and it started to smoke, he drew her attention to it and stood there next to her and told her to use the oven mitts, so she wouldn’t burn herself. Careful, Grandma.
And she put on the mitts and took it by one end and as soon as it was free of the oven it tipped and emptied the boiling grease onto his right foot.
She felt terrible and he felt terrible that she felt terrible.
When he finished screaming every obscenity he knew, he tried to comfort her.
In the hospital where he got a skin graft he had rubber joke vomit and tricked a nurse with it, who then tricked another nurse with it.
Sometimes you’re awake and feel alive. Sometimes you’re tired and feel dead.
Anyone who thinks they understand this world raise your hand.

The attacking crow attacks, crow real estate part 2 or 3

mig — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 04:29:32 +0000

One minds one’s business.
One walks down the street to catch a subway. But the crows, so one tosses them treats and they follow one to the very edges of their territory for more treats, and into (maybe they are new arrivals and don’t know, or just hungry now in the fall) the territory of the attacking crow.
Words are exchanged in crow, on this sunny fall evening. Like, “fuck you get the hell out,” and “fuck off.”
Then it quiets down and one thinks it is over until one receives a blow to the top of the head, and feels the claws of both feet of the attacking crow in one’s scalp.
This is an escalation, this attack. Previously there was a whack on the head from a wing tip, then there was a body slam to the back of the head.
This here, claws, feels like an escalation.
Who knows?
At least it’s not defecating.
It seems desperate, maybe it has a nest close, but it’s the wrong season for babies.
??
It sits there on a telephone wire, watching.
One throws it some treats.
It watches.
One throws it some more treats.
Some people walk past, pretending nothing unusual is happening.
One turns and takes a few steps in the direction of the subway station, then looks back and the crow is checking out the doggie treats.
Ok.
“Don’t reward the crow for attacking you,” one’s daughter texts.
“I’m trying to make friends,” one texts back, “but I see your point.”

Never leave without treats

mig — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 12:22:14 +0000

The ceiling fan turned slowly, as if a small, discouraged helicopter had turned upside-down and began to poke through from the apartment upstairs, but then accepted its fate and given up. The private detective’s office smelled like cheap tobacco, medium-priced whisky and expensive divorces and the afternoon light slicing through the dusty, half-open Venetian blinds gave everything a slicy, dusty look.
“So how’d you describe dem?” said the PI.
I glanced up from my phone, which I had briefly switched on to see if its recent vibration had been from an important notification or something ignorable like “you have achieved your stair-climbing goal” (I had exceeded it) but then fallen down a rabbit hole of short videos of animals that were normally sworn enemies interacting cutely, like a puppy riding around on a goose or a cat with a mouse on its head.
“He was covered with iridescent black feathers and had a slender head,” I said. “So I’m not sure if it was a he or a she or a young he or what.”
“Iridescent.”
“Yeah! It turns out the iridescence might be a way they tell each other apart, like an additional feature they notice. Which makes me wonder if we have an invisible iridescence, invisible to us, but that they can notice, because how do they recognize me otherwise, no matter what I’m wearing, even a hat or sunglasses, or a raincoat or carrying an umbrella? Once I was standing in the middle of about 25 of them and pulled a feather out of my inside suit pocket and showed it to them. No idea what I had expected, but not what I got. They all, like, startled, and took a couple steps back, and a few left altogether. Despite the treats I was giving them.”
“Treats? You sure they like them?”
“Well another one today came over with 2 peanuts in its beak and when it saw the treats it discarded the peanuts and took the treats.”
“This the first time you got mugged?”
“I’m not sure that’s what it was. I mean, ok. It felt… as if someone had hit me in the back of the head with a medium bird. Feathery, initially, but an instant later quite substantial, and moving at a good clip. Not just a flyby and whack you in the head with a wingtip thing.”
“Not.”
“No. Cause that happened too, months ago. Same street corner, in fact. Same perp too, most likely. At the time it felt like a ‘hello!’ or something, to get my attention, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Slender, iridescent etc etc,” said the PI.
“Yeah. I mean, he might’ve figured I was affiliated with the others invading his territory.”
“Mob thing?”
“For all I know I *was* affiliated with them. They did follow me around. Into his territory. I have no knowledge of corvid real estate law.”
“Yeah, makes sense, I see what you mean,” said the PI, and leaned back and put his feet on his desk. He put his hands, which I noticed were oddly-shaped, behind his head.
The back of my neck crawled. I felt a hunch coming on. Then a shoe fell off and a bird head stuck out of his pant leg and I was sure.
This was no human private eye, it was a bunch of crows in a “sexy private eye” costume you can order on the Internet.
My eyes scanned the room for a route of escape. I couldn’t egress via the fire escape, there would just be more out there.
I had to leave the way I had come, through the front door.
“So these treats,” the PI said.
I reached into the pocket of my overcoat and removed a handful. “These here,” I said.
The PI’s countenance took on a greedy aspect. I threw the treats to the floor and they rolled into a far corner of the room. Everything that happened after that is blurred in my memory. I lurched for the door while the detective dissolved into a swarming mass of iridescent black-feathered birds and attacked the still-rolling treats in a cacophony of caws and flapping wings.
To my shock and horror the door was locked. But luckily the key was in the keyhole and by turning it I was able to unlock the door and make my escape after all.
I slipped a few more treats through the mail slot in the door just to be nice before leaving.
“Never leave without treats,” I thought, “no matter where you are.”

Show and tell

mig — Tue, 30 Aug 2022 13:14:45 +0000

It’s one of those days, one of those late-summer days where it is still summer but fall already has your heart by the back of the neck like a fox stealing a goose so I took a walk to fend off melancholy. I filled up the plastic bag in my pocket with a few handfuls of crow treats and went to the park.
There were new crows on the way to the park, some new anyway, and some regulars but they all knew me. How do they describe you to each other? They recognize me no matter what I am wearing, even hats and umbrellas. They leave other people alone, but they haze me when I try to pass through their territory without treats. They swoop me and if that doesn’t work they swoop closer and whack me on the head with their wing. Or touch me with their wing, I don’t know how the gesture is intended, but I love it.
How does a crow describe a human? How does their language work?
Same thing in the park. Some new, some old crows, the ones in the territories where I feed them all knew me. Two sentry crows in the beginning, more as I passed through the trees near the benches, then a lot more over by the ponds. Relaxing off to the sides, higher up in trees, pretending they are not watching but definitely watching because when you toss the first treat to a crow they all swoop down.
I walked to the far side of the pond, surrounded by perambulating crows, some stepping, some hopping, all of us nonchalantly not acknowledging each other’s existence.
I sat on a bench and they surrounded me, waiting. Watching. I look at my watch. I’ll wait two more minutes for stragglers then we’ll start the lecture, I felt like saying. I toss them a few to keep their attention. That works. I feed several of them by hand. They hop up onto the back of the park bench and I stretch out my arms and they eat from my hands.
When people walk by we all pretend not to know each other again.
What do you guys think of this, I say. I pull a black crow feather out of an inner pocket of my suit jacket and show it to them.
They’re all like, whoa! Their eyes get big and they take a few steps back, the whole bunch of them. A few leave entirely.
I’m like, it’s ok, I didn’t pluck it from someone, I found it on the sidewalk!
They were wary after that. No one wanted to eat from my hand anymore, for the rest of my lunch break.
They still followed me around though, so I had to budget the remaining treats to see me through to the edge of their territory.

Running up that you-know-what

mig — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 12:19:40 +0000

I was racing a nun up a hill this morning, the final and steepest hill on my morning walk from the train station to the office – it goes past a nunnery, convent, something along those lines, the ground floor windows are barred and when you look in you generally see nuns, stamping out license plates, sharpening spoons into shivs in metal shop – and she was tough, despite the early heat – maybe she wanted to get a to a bus before the dogs picked up her scent – the scent of a nun – Al Pacino’s lowest-grossing film (at the box office at least) but I was doing pretty good, I was ahead, I was leading but then I had to stop to feed a crow because rule is, if the crow recognizes you and you have anything edible on your person you must share and this crow definitely recognized me – I even recognized it, black with a white spot, unmistakable – plus it said, Racing nuns now are we, Mig? And I was like, More like trying to get in my fitness points this morning – my wife gave me one of those watches that tracks your every move – And this is my best hill, the longest, steepest hill on my morning walk, here have a Frolic. Have five Frolics. And it went to work on the Frolics and left me alone. And that’s why I got fitness points this morning, just not as many as I had hoped for.

I just want to say

mig — Fri, 22 Apr 2022 10:39:33 +0000

I just want to say
that it doesn’t hurt much
when a crow pecks you
accidentally
trying to get the doggie treat
you are holding out for it
while sitting on the park bench
surrounded by crows
regarding you like acolytes
waiting for words of enlightenment.
It is scarier feeding a bagel to a juvenile seagull
than a snack to a crow.
This is especially true if you grew up
getting pecked by chickens all the time.
I just want to say
my thing with the crows
is not going unnoticed at the park,
a young family walked by
and referred to me
as “Professor Rabe”.
I just want to say
that I am still sadder
and more broken up by
my mother’s death
than I had expected.
But the crows help.
If someone asks me about them
I will say, “I have to come and feed them,
they know where I work and
come and shit on my balcony otherwise,”
but that is not the reason.
I know it’s just crows and doggie treats,
but it’s a comfort.

Notes on the proper selection of an appropriate amulet

mig — Fri, 28 Jan 2022 09:09:14 +0000

Ask the sun, when you fell upon me, reflected off the orange garbage truck my streetcar was stuck behind on the way to work this morning, filling the streetcar with bright amber light and turning the interior into mysterious silhouettes, was it a judgement or a blessing? Or do you not perceive any of us at all?
Ask the crows, what say the slain? And listen to their answer: they are waiting for you to delineate your sadness over your mom dying, to put a name on it, for you to find a balance for it between heart and head but for that to happen it has to come out of the dark. They are waiting for you to understand something ununderstandable.
Ask the bear, do you feel like I do when I am walking down the stairs at the subway station and faster descenders pass me right and left when you stand in the river and running salmon crowd past you on their way to spawn, or is there a difference bc you are eating them and I am not? And are people right who say a fish does not perceive the water surrounding it, or are fish as aware of it as we are of air and ground, do they even hold swimming contests and do they maybe, crowding into the mouth of a river on their way to spawn, arrange dates when they hit it off, baby that shady spot under the alder tree, lay your eggs there, I have so much milt for you.
Walk in a circle while reading the instructions on the can of blue insulation foam, especially the bit that says ‘only fill the space 1/3 of the way with foam, as it continues to expand after application’ because if not the foam will expand uncontrolled and drip onto the floor and onto the attic ladder/steps, the bookcase, two books, your slippers, your shirt, your glasses and your hair, and if that happens do not try to wash it out of your hair because the instructions also say, For better adhesion dampen target area prior to application, and if you read that after making your hair wet you will feel like a moron, justifiably, and the insulation foam remover you rush to the hardware store for won’t work for you either, although if you make an emergency appointment with your hair stylist she will, together with two colleagues, in the emergency hair salon operating room you didn’t realize they had, using the foam remover and some stuff they use to remove hair extensions, in a dramatic and slightly painful medical-drama-style operation not only successfully remove every last bit of foam (which is, chemically, a close relative of super glue) from your hair, which you had expected would have to be shaved off, they will also laugh while working on you and say, “This is a first, this is one for the books, we have never had anything like this,” and ultimately style your hair and leave you looking nicer than ever, and charge you such a paltry sum you give everyone big tips.
Ask the crows, what say the dead, to which they will answer, nothing today.
Then wander into the junk shop with your eyes closed and hold your hands over the amulets and feel the vibes.

Exit, whistling

mig — Wed, 18 Aug 2021 09:29:06 +0000

Man, Woman: (load catfood, dog treats and flea/tick ointment onto conveyor belt)
Cashier: (Rings up purchases)
Cashier: (Hands woman two envelopes of dog treats) We’re giving out these free samples today.
Woman: (Examines treats, hands them back) No, thank you. We don’t have dogs.
Cashier: (Glances at large bag of dog treats they just bought, looks puzzled)
Man: Oh, those are for crows.
Cashier: (Does that half-nod thing where your chin goes up but not back down again, remaining in up position while the wheels turn)
Man, Woman: (exit, whistling)

Rainy day

mig — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 08:26:04 +0000

It’s raining. The light outside is remarkable. Dark sky, with brighter spots lighting various deciduous trees turning gold at various rates. A glossy wet crow stands on the balcony railing outside my office. I go outside and place dog treats along the railing. Before I’m even done, I glance over my shoulder and there’s another crow 2 feet away with a beakful of dog treats hurrying me up.
Hang on a sec, I have to go back out and refill the dog treats.
Ok.
The problem with life is eventually the crows shit all over your balcony and someone says, hey Mig stop feeding the crows they’re shitting all over the balcony.
Hang on, they’re cawing at me for more treats. BRB
Thing is, though, it’s also nice to tell yourself you know the crows know they can count on you.
Maybe the rain will wash the shit away.

Yes, so

mig — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 13:07:32 +0000

Establishing shot: Galaxy
Quick zoom from there to face of (anti-virus) masked man as he – walking down crowded sidewalk – realizes he is audibly muttering the word, “idiots”.
Over and over.
His eyes, as he realizes this, express a complex emotion. Like, he agrees with himself, but he hadn’t realized he was saying it out loud.
Saying it at all.
Later someone tells him, I quit reading your bread-baking story halfway through bc bread baking doesn’t… I just don’t bake bread.
Later, someone else he is telling about hiking abruptly changes the topic to the virus.
Yes, he says. The virus.
Yes. So.
On his lunch break he walks to the store and buys a sandwich. All the way there, crows scream in the trees lining the street. It feels like a ticker tape parade, just with screaming crows.
That cheers him up.
In the trees.
On a stop sign.
Atop a parked car.
Standing in a gutter.
Watching him from a fence.
A woman zipping down the sidewalk on a scooter nearly hits him from behind. He hadn’t noticed her at all.
Fuck!
Perched on a telephone wire.
He resolves to ask his new therapist what one can do to not be a boring old fart.
Atop a moving truck.
But he knows already. Lose 20 pounds and keep your mouth shut.
Standing in the grass.
Flying over his shoulder so close he feels the wind.
Screaming, screaming.

Two men on a windy day, hearing aids, crows and explosive chemicals: a play in one act

mig — Tue, 03 Mar 2020 13:15:24 +0000

Man: Hello?
Other Man: Psshht weee bzz pssshshhh delivery flmflmflm psshhhh bzz.
Man: (Throws dog snacks to two crows)
Man: Sorry, what?
Other Man: (A little plaintive) Psshhh bzz I’m woooom flmflmflm bzzz (delivery company name) bzzz home?
Man: (to the crows) Here you fuckers.
Other Man: ???
Man: I’m terribly sorry, I’m outside and it’s very windy. Would you mind repeating one more time?
Other Man: I’m bzzz pssshhhweee (delivery company name) delivery at (recites man’s address) no one home?
Man: Ah, gotcha. No, no one is home. You can just leave the parcel by the door.
Man: Here’s your last handful, you greedy wankers.
Man: Or, you know what, you’re at the house now?
Other Man: Yes (recites address again)
Man: There’s a terrace behind the house. Just put the parcel on the table.
Hunting dog walking by on leash: (Sniffs man’s dogfood pocket)
Man: Hey fuck off buddy.
Other Man: There is a table. On the table.
Man: Yes. There is, like, a little roof over the table. And the item in the package is not sensitive even if it does rain (just keep it away from open flame if you know what I mean) (and don’t drop it) just put it on the table (cats will pee on it but I’m throwing away the box anyhow).
Other Man: Okay.
Man: Thanks! Have a nice day!

Fantasy

mig — Sun, 01 Mar 2020 20:09:10 +0000

Her: … so your turn, what’s your fantasy?
Him: Erm.
Him: Instead of Covid-19 it’s Corvid-19 and spread by crows and everyone is afraid of crows.
Him: All but one hairy old guy.
Him: Who they call the Crowmaster.
Him: But he’s not a master of crows. He’s more like a pal.
Him: That’s how it looks from his side. Who knows what a crow thinks.
Him: Could be they just like his dogfood.
Him: But when dozens of squawking crows swirl around him in the park on a windy day, he can understand where the Crowmaster comes from.
Him: And because everyone else is shunning crows, his flock in the park gets bigger and bigger.
Him: And the weather gets windier and windier.
Him: And people get more and more scared. Of him too.
Him: And crows everywhere, hanging in the wind, squawking in all the tree branches.
Him: On the windiest day, so many crows are flying around you can’t see him anymore.
Him: He disappears from view.
Him: The wind dies down and the crows disperse.
Him: And the guy is no where to be seen.
Him: Then maybe it snows a little bit, before the sun comes out.
Her:
Her: Ok.