The crow taunts me viciously, leading me around the swampy pit of black, fetid goo, keeping just far enough ahead that I will keep trying to catch up. The bird doesn't look too healthy itself, its feathers a rusty black and most of its tail fallen out, but it hops around spryly enough, eyeing me with sharp cunning from one yellow-rimmed black eye at a time. I don't know how long I've been chasing him, but it's been a long time - long enough for my hands and knees to have become terribly scratched and abraded from the rocky rim of the pit and from the bird's yellow beak.
I lunge too far and my hand goes into the slime in the pit, where it gets tangled in a huge hank of slippery black hair. I pull my hand out and scrape and shake it around, trying to get the mess off. I know I'll probably get an infection and die from whatever bacteria live in the pool. That was part of the crow's plan all along.
*
Whether I died or not I don't know, but I never did catch the crow.
May 25, 2001
©2001, 2003 Alan P. Scott. All rights reserved.
Last updated April 2, 2003.
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ascott@pacifier.com