A mess on the ground that looks like a witch’s wig, but it’s a crow. A dead crow. I’m superstitious enough it’s a sign, and sure enough…cops around the corner with a tow truck about to mount a Range Rover. The sounds disturb the early morning scene on my walk to the lake. The beeping and cranking of the hydraulics as it lowers and lifts. The uncaring look of the driver and cops, they’ve all done this before. The mechanics of law and order, of signs.

The crows are relentless, and you can see why they call it a murder when they amass, it has the same effect on the ears. The fury and injustice goes on and on. They fill the sky.

The light is at an angle now when the sun sets it throws patterns of leaves against the house, a shadow play cut from paper, cast against a lamp. The theater of summer from a distance, the end of the year play. The metal rooster sits on an arrow pointing north. I wonder if someone will gather the dead crow in a bag. If it will be there tomorrow on my walk to the lake still. The Range Rover surely won’t.

Categories: death, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, existentialism, mindfulness, pacific northwest, William Pearse writer