The Crow-Kissed Fool

Prologue: The Calculus of Madness

In Narsingdi, madness was measured in crows.

A man who talked to goats? Two crows. A widow who washed her husband’s ghost in turmeric water? Four. But Rafiq Miah—the bokaa who danced in monsoon rains with a dead rooster tied to his wrist—had thirty-seven crows at last count. The village said Allah had swapped his aql with a jackal’s. Only the crows knew the truth: Rafiq’s madness was a language. And they were fluent.

Chapter 1: The Geometry of Ghosts

Rafiq’s morning ritual never varied. He’d wake at the muezzin’s first call, pluck a chili from the shamans’ cursed garden, and walk backward to the riverbank, reciting multiplication tables in a dead dialect.

Ek dush dui… tin… char…

The crows memorized his footsteps.

Bokaa! the fishmonger spat as Rafiq passed. Your mother’s grave is cracking! Fix it before Eid!

Rafiq grinned, teeth stained betel-red. Graves are for the living, Bhaiya. The dead prefer verandas.

He wasn’t wrong. Last winter, old Mrs. Chowdhury’s ghost had taken to shelling peas on Rafiq’s porch. No one mentioned how her spectral fingers left the peas unnaturally sweet.

At the river, Rafiq unfolded his prayer mat—a burlap sack stitched with crow feathers—and began his salah. The crows settled around him, heads tilted as if deciphering divine code.

Allahu Akbar…

The river burped. A waterlogged sari floated to the surface, its folds cradling a newborn’s skull.

As-salamu alaykum, little one, Rafiq murmured. The crows cawed a dissonant ameen.

Chapter 2: The Arithmetic of Drowning

The village tolerated Rafiq because he was useful. When a child fell feverish, he’d prescribe crow’s breath (hold the infant under a tree at dawn). When husbands vanished into the bhati

brothels, he’d track them via their discarded sandals.

But when the river stole Aklima Begum’s twin boys, even Rafiq’s madness faltered.

Find them, she begged, pressing a tabiz to his chest. Inside the amulet: her sons’ milk teeth and a lock of hair.

Rafiq sniffed the charm. Copper and regret. They’re not drowned.

Liar! Aklima wailed. The river took them!

The river takes, Rafiq agreed, but it keeps. These boys… they were borrowed.

That night, he rowed a stolen dinghy into the current. The crows followed, their wings slicing moonlight into jagged shards.

Chapter 3: The Calculus of Currents

The river’s belly was a museum of loss. Rafiq’s oar stirred ghosts: a bride’s nose ring, a fisherman’s net knotted with suicide notes, the skeleton of a British-era steamer still smoking phantom coal.

The crows grew agitated. One pecked Rafiq’s earlobe until blood dripped onto his shoulder.

Shaitan’s tongue! he hissed—then froze.

Ahead, the water bulged. Something rose—not a body, but a shape. A house. No, a memory of a house: clay walls, thatch roof, the scent of mustard oil and rotting jute. Aklima’s lost home, swallowed by the river in ’98.

Inside, shadows moved. Two small ones.

Rafiq anchored the boat with his oar and stepped into the liquid memory.

Chapter 4: The Algebra of Absence

The house was a diorama of before.

Aklima’s husband, Abdul, alive and humming a film song, fried hilsa in the kitchen. The twins, Tarek and Anis, played with a clay elephant by the hearth.

But the edges bled. Abdul’s face melted where the river had chewed it. The twins’ laughter echoed as if through a long tunnel.

Baba, the bokaa is here! Tarek pointed.

Abdul turned. His eyes were fish eggs. You’re early.

Early for what? Rafiq asked.

The twins giggled. The exchange!

Abdul lifted the frying pan. Instead of fish, it held Rafiq’s crow-feather prayer mat, sizzling in ghost oil.

One memory for two sons, Abdul said. Fair trade.

Rafiq’s crows dive-bombed the spectral house, tearing at the thatch.

No trades, Rafiq said. Only gifts.

He spat betel juice onto the hearth. The fire roared green.

Chapter 5: The Trigonometry of Thorns

Dawn found Rafiq on Aklima’s porch, the twins shivering in his arms. Their skin smelled of river mould and burnt sugar.

My boys! Aklima wept.

Rafiq slumped against a post. His right hand was blistered, the skin peeling to reveal something black and fibrous underneath—like jute roots.

Feed them, honey, he rasped. `And never let them near water.

The village buzzed. A miracle! But the imam scowled. Allah’s work needs no madman.

That night, Rafiq hacked up a bouquet of riverweed. The crows ate it, then spoke in Aklima’s voice: They’re changing. The boys taste of silt.

Rafiq smiled. So do we all.

Chapter 6: The Quantum of Questions

The twins were wrong.

Tarek drew pictures of drowned cities. Anis solved equations in base-13. When villagers asked where they’d been, the boys sang:

Under the river, where time is a knife!

We met our baba, who traded his life!

Rafiq’s hand worsened. The roots spread, climbing his arm like veins. He began burying things: a brass lamp, his mother’s sari, the rooster’s bones.

Preparing, he told the crows.

For what? they cawed.

The unasking.

When the cyclone came, it wore Abdul’s face.

Epilogue: The Fractal of Forgotten

After the flood, the village moved inland. Only the mad stayed—or those who’d forgotten how to leave.

Rafiq’s hut still stands, half-swallowed by jute. On quiet nights, you can hear him arguing with Mrs. Chowdhury’s ghost over cardamom prices.

The twins? They run the new tea stall. Their cha steeps too dark, too sweet. Customers swear they sometimes see crows’ feet peeking beneath the boys’ cuffs.

As for the river, it’s learned new tricks. Last monsoon, it spat up Rafiq’s prayer mat, perfectly dry.

The crows guard it still, crooning equations only the mad can solve.