by John Brantingham
The first good day of the year finds you sitting on the bench outside the building where you work. You’re eating your sandwich across from the crow who is watching you and having whatever thoughts and daydreams and beliefs crows have on sunny May afternoons. Both of you made it through another winter, and you’re grateful enough for life that you toss him a crust with peanut butter on it.
The crow cocks his head and bounces twice to you. He takes your offering and eats it, and you say, “How was the winter? How was it out in the snow?” You take another crust and toss it to him and think about every crow fact you know. You’re lost in your thoughts on crows when he bounces and flaps and is gone. You wonder what you did to offend him, but then you turn and see that one of the younger guys from the office has walked up and is sitting across from you. He became your boss recently though you can’t remember his name. He’s 40 or something like that, young enough that he doesn’t know that it’s almost over for him, young enough that he thinks he has his whole life ahead of him.
The crows are speaking today, and you listen to them, and you fade the young man out. His voice is a metronome. He clack clacks his words until he says, “Jeffrey? Jeffrey?” And you must be having an episode, which you’ve hidden cleverly up to now from everyone at work, and you know it’s an episode because you’re only 59% sure that the word “Jeffrey” means you.
“Jeffrey,” he says. “Are you doing all right?”
You say, “Sure Daniel . . . David . . .” Your boss’s name is David not Daniel; you hang on to that. You know that because the fog is lifting as it always does, just that it takes longer these days.
“Seriously, are you all right?”
“Sure, I’m all right, Boss. I was just listening to that crow and his buddies. He was here but then bounced away, and he’s been calling to his mate or mother. Crows build family relationships and will help each other build nests every year.”
David stares at you long enough that you think maybe there was no crow. Maybe this is one of those phantom things that materializes sometimes and your wife covers for you because she doesn’t like this any more than you do.
But then the crow is back, bouncing on the ground at your feet. You tear off a piece of sandwich and put it on the edge of the bench. The crow bounces on that and takes your gift.
“The crows like you,” David says.
“I showed them a little kindness. That’s all.”
“They respect you. They scream and attack other people, but they respect you.”
You say, “Thank you,” which doesn’t make sense exactly, but it makes the most sense that anything could make at this moment. This is not a time for sense. Maybe making sense is gone forever for you.
David says, “I respect you too. I want you to know that. No matter what happens, I want you to know that I respect you. I have always respected you.”
You look at him and smile, and the crow launches into the air to tell his beautiful large family that you are here and that you are a creature of love and that you would give your sandwich just for the beauty of giving. You watch the crow in the air and think about your first field trip back in kindergarten, the excitement of getting into a big yellow school bus and then lunch in the park, and there were crows. That day you had peanuts and offered them to the crows, who loved them. Even that long ago they loved you and respected you. They have always loved you and respected you.
You hope they always will.