literature

The Crow

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She woke up with a start, the sudden movement making her head hurt.  Slowly she realized that she was lying face down on a bed of autumn leaves.  Standing just a short distance from her eyes, less than arms length, was a large black crow, who appeared to be studying her mouth.  She craned her neck to get a better look and it jumped back, tilting its head to observe her with one beady black eye.
"Where am I?" she asked the crow, her voice cracking.
"Awk!" the crow replied, turning it's head and fixing her with its other eye.
"Do you speak goose?" she asked, feeling a little silly.
"Cro-awk!" the crow replied, puffing itself up.
"You can't understand me..." MJ muttered, letting her cheek fall back to the pile of leaves.
The crow burst into laughter.
"Naw, I'm jus' messin' whitcha!" he announced, bobbing his head and laughing again. "Of course I can understandja.  I'm Moe!  Pleased ta meetcha!"
"Moe?" she asked, somewhat confused.  The crow was speaking English with a very strange accent, and she was pretty certain the geese had spoken French, or at least she thought she had spoken French to them.
"Moe the Crow?" she asked again in wonderment.
"In the flesh," he replied, bowing with one wing across his breast. "I thought for sure you was a goner, da way you fell true dem trees."
"What happened?"
"Ya mean afore or after dat goose smashed into ya?"
"Goose? What goose?"
"Da one that got swallowed up by dat big ugly bird."
"What?"
"You was bein' hunted by dis big bird, it was movin' a lot faster dan dey usually do, and making a racket like an angry grizzly, so it musta been real hungry or you did somethin' to piss it off.  Did you steal its eggs or sumptin?  Anyhoo, it was about to grab ya when dis fat goose comes outta nowhere and bonks you on da head.  You fall and da big ugly t'ing grabs da goose and burps out a few bits ah feathers.  Dint even slow down.  Never seen anythin' eat so fast, not even a snake.  An' not like it left anythin' for us crows, no-sir-ree!  I was lookin' aroun' ta see if you was OK and you asked where ya was."
MJ sat up and cradled her face in her hands.  "My head hurts, do you have any aspirin?"
She brought her knees up, wrapping them in her arms and leaning her forehead against them.
"What's dat?" the crow asked, hopping around behind her as he added, "I guess you'll live."
"You sound disappointed," MJ retorted as she rubbed her arms, noticing a multitude of scratches and cuts from the branches.  "I suppose you don't know about polysporin either?"
"Pauly who?"
"Nevermind."
"Is dat da goose who saved yer? Is he from Brooklin?"
"Uhm, no."
She stood up slowly, testing her limbs and wings as the crow watched her from an increasing distance.
"Whoa, you'sa big one!" he exclaimed as she spread her wings. "Uh, you don' eat crows, do ya?"
She shook her head and tentatively flapped her wings.  Aside from a bunch of broken feathers, some scratches, cuts and bruises, she didn't seem to have any permanent damage.
"I'd kill for a big bowl of hot tomato soup right now."
"Wazzat?" the crow asked, jumping onto a low branch so he was at eye level with her.
"It's... food.  I'm starving."
To drive home the point her belly produced a growl of complaint.
"I can't see's there bein' many tomatoes left this time o' year.  We could check out da big box behind da smelly place, if we's lucky dey ain't out o' dey cave yet."
"What smelly place? Cave? What are you talking about?"
"Dat place dat always smells bad, it's full o' funny beasts, kinda look like you without the feathers.  Dey chase us away when dey sees us, but deys gotta a box full o' food dat can't be beat.  C'mon, I'll show you!"
The crow took off and MJ began to follow on foot.  The trees were too close together for her to fly and there wasn't enough space between the branches to fly above them.  The crow disappeared between the trees and she continued in the same general direction.  Moments later he returned, encouraging her to move faster before the sun rose too high.  She told him her feet hurt and she couldn't walk any faster, so he landed and hopped along before her, turning every few hops to make sure she was still keeping pace.
When they finally emerged from the woods she realized that they were behind the gas station she had been heading for before... she fell out of the sky.
The crow flew to the dumpster and cawed excitedly for her to come help.  She cautiously moved from the relative safety of the woods to the dumpster, hiding from the roadway and the building behind it's bulk.  She opened the lid and found a cardboard box with which to prop open the lid.  As he squirmed into the dumpster, the crow stuck his head out and said: "You're alright for a goose, you know dat?"
He began to toss out stale sweet buns and various other bread rolls, and MJ caught a cellophane wrapped cinnamon roll on the fly.  She ripped open the wrapper and took a bite.  It was stale and loaded with sugar, but she was so hungry it tasted better than anything she could remember.  When he had a good selection littering the ground, the crow jumped out and exclaimed "Hey! Whatcha doin'?! Ya wanna get caught?! Quick! Grab those and follow me!"
He managed to pick up two rolls in his beak and flew back to the treeline; MJ gathered up what she could carry of what remained and ran after her new friend...
There was some discussion about the ending of "Free as a Bird" Free as a bird, Part I

Free as a bird
Marie-Josée was distressed.  She was driving to Chicoutimi without a plan or even an actual destination.  Her impulse to simply get in her car and go was more a spur-of-the-moment act of desperation than an actual conscious decision.  She had stuffed some of her clothes randomly into a duffel bag, dropped the dog off at her neighbour's apartment, and left.  Eight hours ago.  She was hungry, thirsty, and running low on fuel; the ancient Toyota's fuel gauge indicator hovered barely a few millimetres above the "E."
"How could I have been so stupid?" she asked herself, the car's worn tires hydroplaning momentarily startling her back to reality.  The wipers were having a difficult time keeping her windscreen clear and she slowed down a bit, the heavy rain making her single working high-beam even less effective.  The scenery was nearly uniform, with trees on both sides of the road interspers
and some alternate endings I had imagined.
On a recent flight I was planning to write an alternate ending, but Marie-Josée was such a fun character that I started playing around with extending the story. Think of this as the beginning "Free as a Bird" book 2. Tell me below if you think it's worth pursuing or should I just let it be.

Part II: The Crow Part II"So lemme get this straight," the crow said, grooming his wing.  "You dint usedta have wings, you got 'em so you could be with dat thing that ate the goose?"
"Marcel pilots one of those, yes," she replied, wrapping her arms around her shins and resting her chin on her knees.
"So you gotta figure out how ta get his attention without gettin' eatted..."
Marie-Josée burst into tears.
"Marcel won't want to be with me anymore, why would he want to be with a freak!"
"Whoa, whoa there lady, who's a freak?  I know freaks, you ain't no freak."  He moved closer to her and eyed her remaining stale danish. "You gonna eat that?"
Wiping her eyes, Marie-Josée shook her head.
"What am I going to do Moe?" she whispered, ripping the plastic wrapper for him.
"I have wings, Marcel doesn't.  We can't be together again.  How can he love someone with wings?!"
"I have wings, I ain't wantin' fer lovin'..."
She blushed and said, "That's not what I mean.
© 2012 - 2024 914four
Comments7
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MaryEvans's avatar
:star::star::star::star: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Impact

Finally found some time to get around to this story again.

You stumble a bit in the beginning, I’d suggest you look over the first paragraph and fix the flow.

The crow’s accent is a bit strong, it’s nice and all since it give it a certain personality, but be careful with it because at times it gets a bit hard to read.

"My head hurts, do you have any aspirin?" – doesn’t this make the character sound kind of stupid? I mean it’s only rational that an animal will not have aspirin what’s the point in even asking? If it is indeed meant to show her as a bit simple, fine I guess. Or if she was supposed to be joking/be sarcastic it should be made clearer.

The ending seems a bit rush too, but nothing too major.

Overall nice. Although poor goose… In any case keep up the good work.