Appearing Helpless
Chaser the Crow flapped off home after a nice meal of pumpkin seeds and carpenter ant larvae. The younglings had grown quickly into little jack-a-napes with far too much time and curiosity in their craws for their own good, but as of today, that was no longer Chaser's problem. It had become time for him to leave his parents and make a nest of his own, recently, and his mating partner had fallen gravid immediately. He had his own little flock to care for, now, although he would retain his old friendships and get into the same old hijinks. His flock was still, and would always be, his murder. Chaser and his mate, his now life partner Gretel were both nearly twice the size of the rest of their flock, and Gretel had an adopted family, just like Chaser, too. Their match seemed foreordained from the very start, and they took to each other immediately. They even agreed on where their nest should be placed, and in what manner it should best be built. There was plenty of moss nearby, with which to line the interior cup of their nest, and an even greater wealth of properly sized sticks to choose from. Gretel turned out to be a talented home maker, and for the next two weeks, the love birds1 built their perfect nest. Larger than most of their flocks' and families' nests, in order to accomodate the two large crows, their nest was a good nineteen inches across, and needed to be built in a place sturdy enough to support it's weight with both of them in it. Gretel would be laid up for almost three weeks incubating the younglings, so she and Chaser would take great care to make sure it would be comfortable. And, Chaser being Chaser, the location would be at least somewhat entertaining...and Gretel agreed wholeheartedly with that sentiment. It was one of the things that she thought was so wonderful about Chaser, who (for his part) was utterly besmitten with the deep black of Gretel's eyes, and purple-seeming accents of her wings, and the way she chuckled under her breath at Chaser's jokes and antics. She was his greatest fan, and he adored her for it. So, he proposed a place he knew very few People, with a capital P, would frequent. The maple tree overlooking the burnt down grain silo.
Ever since the night of the fire, the silo sat there in a pile of its own ruinous self. Oh, sure, at first an effort was made to at least reclaim the land the awry old silo had been built upon, but even the toughest of the People, that big, squint-eyed fellow the others all called Morg, stopped coming around once the old girl in the nightgown started to wander the old silo's perimeter. Chaser would watch her walk for hours as he flitted about the space, picking up sticks and stiff blades of grass for his nest. She wore a singed nightgown, with bruised wrists and ankles, and an angry welt around her frail old neck. She seemed so sad, shuffling around every night. Sad that no one but Chaser and Gretel seemed to see her, maybe, or sad that no one ever came to visit her. One never could tell, with People, thought Chaser. They were as baffling as the sea was deep. But, one thing was for sure; the People avoided the entire area that the silo had been built upon, yard and all, now. They always seemed to get a chill when they came close, and hurried on their way with their eyes flitting this way and that. It was as if they were scared of the pacing old woman. She showed up surprisingly often, dragging her feet in a circle around the old storage silo's yard. Chaser flew off toward the shoreline with a sudden explosive move, letting loose a single, prolonged cry of sadness for the poor woman. He had been watching the People, ever since that fire, and not a single one would come help this poor old girl realize she was dead.
1 Oh, you better believe that was on purpose...
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