Crow
The trees were crinkled, like wrapping paper. Their branches would frighten me as a child, black and twisted and straining sky-wards in supplication. The crows perched on the highest branches, screaming derision down on us. They would take flight in flocks, wheeling around in a giant circle before settling in a tree that looked no different to the rest.
Our farm is built on a forest-bed. Centuries ago, they had dug out the roots and the trees and laid down soil and bricks and iron. Sometimes the trees would come creeping back in, spreading a toe or two across the boundaries, but we kept them in line with biting axes.
But the trees had a champion. A monstrous hooded crow, as large as a cat. Every morning he would come with the rising sun to dash his head against our window panes. He would perch on a rafter, and beat against the glass with his beak and skull, tap-tap-tap. If we chased him away, he would sit on the telephone wires and caw at us, taunting us, and would be back on his crusade as soon as the door was closed. He was trying to break down the house, I know this. Make it crumble to dust, piece by piece until the earth could reclaim what was hers. He was a thousand years old and one, that crow. He fought for chaos; to send our pretense at order tumbling down around our heads.
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