I woke up at 4 in the morning. This time, the credit for waking me up goes to the unknown entity who is the main reason behind me confronting a ten headed octopus(kootchie kootchie koo, Rohan?) in the land of surreality. I won, naturally, but the octopus's dying scream woke me up.
I stretched. Docs say that stretching after waking up is a natural instinct but not necessarily a healthy one. Remind me to tell you all about how a particular ligament in my calf caught fire. I hopped about in the balcony for ten minutes straight and hopped high enough to make any one-legged frog proud, till the crow arrested my curiosity.
The Crow.
One of the worst looking scavengers, I know, but i find them more fascinating than stupid talking birds. I, myself, often talk to a crow but their replies are so rude and uncouth that i give up. But i concede, a very intelligent species.
The fog was uncharacteristically dense(or maybe not, i have never seen how dense the fog is at 4 a.m). I could see about ten feet into the fog even with my legendary squinting abilities. I noticed the Crow, shrouded by an evil green veil which, I realised after a moment's deliberation, was just the coconut leaf surrounding it.
The Crow in question had its beady eyes fixed on mine. I blinked, nonplussed but the crow was looking straight at me, its eyes an inscrutable black. Almost sinister.
I began to make faces and threatening gestures.After a particularly wild volley of gesticulations, which prompted my mom to throw a worried look at me, i still found the crow staring at me, unmoved, unaffected.
The Crow.
I felt slightly uneasy. The eyes had a strange feel about them, it was as if i knew what it meant yet i didn't. It was well over fifteen minutes since i had begun my pursuit to scare the crow but it still sat there. Just like that.
By this time, i was seriously worried. I decided to do something dramatically conclusive. I fished around in my cupboard and found two marbles. Armed with marbles, i faced the crow again. By now the terrifying eyes looked dark and morbid and so without wasting time, taking careful aim, i threw the stone at it.
It happened on my first attempt. The marble hit its mark. However the crow made no attempt to move out of the way neither did it cry out. It just toppled over and went down.
Horrified, i rushed downstairs to see what happened. I found the crow lying in the center of a pineapple plant. It had its wings folded by its sides. Its claws were bent at odd angles. I looked into its eyes.
It still looked back, boring into my eyes with that unwavering look,the look which had something strange-
The look which drove
In like a knife
The eyes without
The flicker of life.
The Crow had been dead for several hours.
5 comments:
Am Deeply moved man.......It's a rare incident to experience, but all the same an enthralling one. Nicely concluded!
Wow, you sure are better at this kind of stuff than the ones you attempted previously. This was morbid! I'm feeling queasy. Like the afternoon suddenly went dark. Like those eyes are staring right at me from somewhere, sweeping up waves of nausea and horror.
The face of death I saw in my Grandma was a peaceful, beautiful one. This is the other side of it. The physical morbidity of death. It's terrible.
But that's exactly the way it's supposed to make us feel, so you maybe it means you're successful.
I still won't forgive you for making my afternoon dark!
Technically, yes, i did try to make it horrifying. Good to see its having the desired effect. Honestly, that crow scared me too! I am trying out different things, see. You can expect something slightly different next time, though i cant guarantee it wouldnt be a goof-up.
@Amit
:-) thanks! Not enthralling though, seriously scary one!
I wonder if you'd just watched 'The Crow: City of Angels' before writing this post. Or a more direct reference could be to 'The Raven'. But who's Lenore in your case, hmmm?
I watched neither. I watched the real crow, this aint fiction,Mr. Cat. And i was horrified more than any movie could ever make me.
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