The Curse of the Crow

Is it that I follow the crow? Or does the curse of the crow following me?

At any rate, these birds seem to haunt me to wherever I move.

Credit: Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine / Flickr

The first time I became eerily aware of them was visiting the amazing Trinity-Serius Monastery in Zagorsk, just about 45 miles outside of Moscow, in the then USSR, (the limit we diplomatic folk were allowed to venture out—albeit with a chain-smoking tail trailing after us; it was during the time of the tenuous Cuba Crisis).

It was a blustery November day, and the place was deserted – except for bunches of old women, bundled in black shawls, sitting around like – well, crows, I thought. Then I saw them. Flocks of them, silently waiting for – what? Death? It was an eerie scene; the women and the crows eyeing us suspiciously.

Years went by and I had moved to the jewel of the Pacific, La Jolla, California. I loved to sit on my deck, palms rustling overhead in the sea breeze, the temperature just right, no bugs – wait! What was that shrill noise? Ah, crows! Bunches of them!

I remember one consoling thought on my last day before the movers came for Arkansas.

“At least, I’m leaving the crows behind.”

Wrong!

Crows are noisy. Crows are cantankerous. Crows are smart.

They remember your face.

And ... they know where you live….

I am not too fond of crows.

Maybe that’s why I never put them into any of my stories.

Now, there’s a thought.