Once years ago I was studying abroad in France, working as an English tutor at a local college. The town was fairly small, large enough to have a few name-brand places here and there but not enough to have an airport or anything like that. One thing, it was full of fucking birds, crows, and ravens mostly.
The most memorable part of my entire time in France was once when I had a particularly bad day. I made my money by being a tutor, my largest patron was the dad of some far-off old French royalty spoiled brat, his dad paid me so much to deal with his kid on a weekly basis. The kid of course didn’t care, his father wanted him to learn English so he could converse with the American and British companies that the many businesses his family had owned worked with.
Being a brat he just wanted to galavant across the EU and spend his billions on hookers and blow, and he made the very apparent every session but the money was good so I just stuck and bore it. I had this dandy little arrangement until an actual test in the kid’s English class happened he failed with flying colors and I was sacked the day after.
I spent the day walking home from college, whispering curses and swearing to myself about that rich asshole and idiot father when a crow walked up onto my path about ten feet up. It was fairly large for a crow but far too small to be a raven, it had a white streak across its right wing and it was missing its left eye.
Being so frustrated with life that when I walked by I whispered loudly “Street rat,” and kicked the bird. It didn’t seem injured and flew away with an almost human expression of hatred that gave me pause for a moment.
I felt bad immediately afterward, I was thinking of maybe leaving some bread out for it to say sorry that night. I lay in bed and stared at the closed window for a few minutes before falling asleep. A sharp punch sound coming from the window woke me up and for a moment I saw a brief black movement, then I saw the window was open slightly.
I bolted up and over to the cracked frame and looked, there was some bird shit outside, just a damn bird. When I laid back down it felt warm in a line, then there was a strange muscly movement on my back creeping up and up and up.
I got up as fast as light and pulled the covers off, and saw a snake. I ran out the bedroom door, grabbed whatever thick tape I had lying around, and sealed the damned hall. I thought to myself, how the fuck could a snake get in there.
I attempted to fall back asleep on the couch but just ended up staying up all night. I went to class and then tutored, I was about ready to pass out when I sat at the park. The bench felt weirdly comfortable and I began to doze. I was at the edge of wakefulness and sleep when I felt a wait on my lap that woke me up. That same crow stared at me with one eye, turning its head completely so our gazes would meet exactly.
It let out a deep, smokey, billowy caw, and it seemed a murder of fifteen more assembled in front of me. All at once, I was lambasted with beaks, wings, and claws and when the attack had finished my skin was red and cut, my clothes stained and torn, and my will broken for a moment. The crow flew off defiantly.
I didn’t go to class the next day, I also seal myself in my apartment, the only bathroom in the whole place was the master bath connected to my room which I sealed, so there was no way I was using it, I ended up using bottles and buckets instead.
For a week or two, I stayed there cowering in that sorry little hovel, surviving off of scraps and drops until there was nothing left. Ages without showering or any kind of hygiene I dragged myself to the store. I bought basic supplies, plus a roll.
I walked around for a while, roll in hand, hoping to bribe my way out of this, somehow apologize in a way a crow would understand. I found him on a sidewalk near the park. I walked up slowly, roll outstretched. It looked at the roll, then me, then the road.
It took a jump backward and I followed, if my life was to continue this had to work. He jumped again and I followed, and again, and again, and again until I found myself in the middle of the street.
It gladly took the roll from my hands and even though birds have no lips, it jumped back once more and I thought I could sense a devilish smile coming across its evil little face. I cocked my head to the side to try and understand the expression, until without warning, BOOM, a car flipped me over its top, slamming me back down to the ground in debilitating pain and passing out.
I awoke in a hospital room with a nurse checking my vitals, she didn’t notice me wake up and so she left. I looked over to my right, noticed I didn’t feel anything then saw the morphine bag hooked to an IV, which explained it.
Then I looked to my left, an open window. In my state, I didn’t think much of it, until I saw it fly through. In my altered mind it looked terrifying, the size of a dog, every step it took shook the very earth and the beating of its wings were like fans at max strength in my ears. It flew on my chest, I could hear and feel my heart rate increase as it looked at the bag to my right. It looked at me and gave a devilish grin, before reaching over and cutting the IV with its beak.
The change wasn’t immediate and somehow I think it knew that. That feathering devil sat at the window sill for the meds to wear off, and soon, they did. The pain was excruciating, I could only sit and grip my sheets, and I couldn’t even move enough to hit the call nurse button.
Satisfied, the bird left.
A few weeks later I had recovered, and I made it to my apartment. The door was locked with a pink slip on the outside.
“Apartment evicted and closed due to negligence and missed payments,” it said, taking away the only safe space I had.
In the dirty, torn clothes I had to wear, I went over to the park. On the way there the crow found me. It just walked along with me, I didn’t even care anymore, I didn’t care what it would do to me, I just wanted to sink and die. I made it to the park untouched, I sat on a bench and the crow stood next to me.
It looked in my direction, smiling inside once again. It cawed twice and left. The caws formed two distinct syllables, the first was a vague S sound, and the next a sort of R sound.
I don’t speak crow, but I know what it called me. “Street rat.”