Robert Morris
The Crow

The job is very simple and I know that I'm the only one that can do it. Pick up a stone, hit a bird out of a tree, the bird falls. You need to have good eyes so you can see the kind of birds, because sparrow's feathers are too short and thin, grackle's too rough and other problems with other birds. You need to try to only hit blue jays and robins, their feather's are good for other things too. Crow's feathers are best, but they are nervous and will fly away even when I move to pick up a stone.

It takes a lot of practice, but I'm good at that too. I try to hit the stems of leaves making sure that the actual leaf doesn't tear. I do this when there aren't any birds, or if there are only bad birds. For every one leaf that's torn other than the stem I have to shoot ten more rocks at ten more leaves. If birds didn't come around, or if it never gets dark it would go on forever. Sometimes, it's like all I hit are leaves, but that doesn't happen too much. After a little while, I go around and collect all the birds I hit so far and go and give them to my father then return and go back to hitting birds. After every throw, I do my best to find the stone. It may sound gross, but I like seeing what pattern the blood makes on it. It's always different.

People from around know me, even from different villages, and sometimes they come to watch. It feels good when I see people coming to see me, but it's usually a bad thing because their talking scares birds. The stone is so quick and fast out of my hand, if people aren't talking about how well the stone hits the birds, the only things that ever notice are the crows. It's so weird, sometimes they don't move when I throw the stone, but all of them fly away when the other bird falls. Once, a man who my father told me to call uncle smiled at me and told me that soon it would not be stones that I throw. He didn't say anything more to me, and different from all the other people, he spoke very quietly with my father so that the birds wouldn't get scared. I didn't know what he meant when he said that; it felt exciting, but I don't know why. Even though I wasn't done shooting birds, I followed that man and my father out to the edge of the village, beyond the next village, all the way to the river. I had never been so far away, even though I was sure I could find my way back. They parted ways at the ferry, and I hurried back. I told my father that night that there had only been crows after they left. I knew he didn't believe me, but I don't think he knew why I was lying, and he never asked.

For a very long time, that was how it was. It began to feel that as soon as my arm had reached back to throw, the stone had already left and the bird was already on the ground. Once I found a stone that had no blood on it at all and I took it with the bird to my father right away. I could see that he was very happy for me and gave the stone back to me and told me to do whatever I wanted with it. It skipped eighteen times on top of the river. That night, I dreamed that it had reached the other bank.

Today, there were only two birds in a very high tree; all of the lower branches were bare. One was a starling the other was a crow. The tree didn't have any leaves and I didn't feel like moving, so I shot the starling, even though its feathers aren't good. When the starling landed on the forest floor, I looked up and noticed that the crow hadn't moved except to turn its head towards me. I bent down so slowly that every little movement was like days. My knees very slowly bent, back very straight, my arm still outstretched as it had been immediately after I had thrown the stone, reaching towards the ground, my eyes on the crow's eyes. I didn't even look to pick up a stone, but I knew how it should feel. I straightened and pulled my arms back so slowly that it was like days before it was back far enough. The crow had just opened its wings when the stone hit its head. Unlike all the other birds, the crow flapped roughly as it fell to the floor. I could barely walk over to where it had fell, my entire body was shaking so much. One side of the crow's head was caved-in and its wings were still moving slowly. I picked it up by its feet, which also still moved, and ran as fast as I could back to my father. I didn't remember to retrieve the stone.

<< Back to Issue 15, 2012