Scavenger

I know you like shiny things, so I try to bring them to you when I can. However, it’s gotten harder to find things on the ground. The world has long since gone back to its mother. Nature is beautiful until it’s overbearing; till it’s overwhelming, and if anything can be said about the growth that has taken control of your former world, over seems like a good start. The green grew seemingly overnight. It is taking over the metallic man-made landscape of your city. So now I have to scour the land from my station up in the sky, wind bristling my sable feathers, to find you anything proper.

So far, I’ve gifted you two things. A crumpled ring, most likely crushed under a heavy boot; its gem missing. And a glittering doll’s eye that you liked so much, I rushed back to find its mate, still stuck in the cracked porcelain. I struggled to drag the doll by its hair, pulling strands out with my beak before I eventually managed to drop it off the side of the curb, freeing the marble from its former home. It was well worth it in the end if only to see your delight.

I did it at first because I owed you a debt. When we first met, you fed me pieces of what little food you saved. You shared it with a creature that is not even the same species as you, and crows never forget a favor.

Your smile each time is what keeps me doing it now. I rarely get to see it now that the apocalypse has started, so I have to work even harder for the opportunity.

I thought of telling my brothers of your generous nature, but there’s something wild in the light of your wide eyes. Something that speaks of barely contained panic, reminding me of the straw men the farmers would craft to scare away my family as a child. The plaid patterned shirt covering his straw chest, barely holding back his wicker heart. It’s clear that you’re barely holding onto the straps of your sanity, and your people have long confused mine as a sign of death, of calamity, instead of the survivors we really are. I didn’t think a murder of crows circling the sky above you would help your mental stability.

A man traveled with you for a little while, but it wasn’t long before the growth got to him too. And while I didn’t particularly like him – he was too brash, too quick to bark out orders – I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I can still remember the way he bloomed, the way life became a disease. His growth was ivy, and it started with a cough. Proof that the vines that soon wrapped around any of his remaining skin in a vice grip started inside. It’s hard to tell what accounts for shrubbery and what accounts for the fallen, overgrown corpses of your brethren.

You cried for a while after he died. You didn’t even have to bury him, but you stalled around his corpse for a while. Your vigil was silent, but I could tell it was meaningful. Crows have funerals too, but they’re not as theatrical as humans’. Still, there was something moving about the fact that you still tried to memorialize him, even with no one else watching. I don’t think I’ll forget it anytime soon, for crows have a great memory.

You’re walking farther now than you ever have before. Perhaps it’s the still lingering grief weighing you down, making you want to get out of the city where your last companion fell. Unlike the suburban area you lived in, the farmland of my youth remains much the same. There’s still growth out here, of course, but it blends in well with the natural flora of the countryside. Making most of the land out here look unkempt but not alarming.

You walk until your cheeks turn red, until your brow is damp with sweat. You come across an old, dilapidated farmhouse and decide to stop for the night. You only pause a moment to take in its dusty curtains and honeysuckle-covered walls before crawling through one of the open windows. I follow after you, appraising the house with a more critical eye than you do. It’s clear from the kitchen that no one lives here anymore – the trash is overflowing and full of rotten food, dishes are left abandoned in the sink, molded and stinking – but beggars can’t be choosers, and it’s better than spending another night out in the elements. Unsure of whether what you’re lying on is plush grass or a decomposed body. You make your way back to the living room, hesitating by the fireplace for a second, taking in the photos of a happy, plump-looking elderly couple that is nowhere to be seen. As you curl up on the couch to sleep, you keep the front door open. As if you’re afraid to fully commit to raiding the old couple’s home. I have no such qualms, so I wait until you’re in-between awake and asleep, the closest to relaxed you ever get anymore, before going upstairs to explore the house myself.

I hop up the stairs slowly, creeping into the first and only bedroom I find. The room is mostly empty, containing only a dark oak dresser and a large four-post bed that takes up most of the space. Yet, even with most of my view of the bed obscured, I can see a few leaves and vines peeking through the thin canopy, letting me know exactly what happened to the old couple.

Their bodies – or what’s left of them – do not interest me, and there’s nothing fancy or interesting left anywhere else in the room to gift to you. So, I fly to the open windowsill, committing myself to an evening looking amongst the surrounding fields when something shiny catches my attention.

I hobble around, looking closer at the garden-like bed — something twinkles in the center of the bush, something yellow and glittering and metallic. I fly over to it in a heartbeat, finding my perch on the top of an ornately carved post. I check to make sure that the mass of green and little white flowers does not move. For while I am a scavenger, and I don’t mind stealing from the dead, robbing the soon to die seems much too amoral. Luckily, there’s no movement save for the occasional sway of a leaf caught in the light, summer-night breeze.

I dive down and catch the treasure in my beak, easily ripping it from the curled bony hand still curled around it. I bring it to the window again and drop it down on the sill to better examine in the low light of the setting sun. I chirp happily at what I see. An antique but still breathtaking heart-shaped locket. Something that will be a perfect addition to your growing collection.

I’m out of the window and soaring around the side of the house before the sun can fully disappear beyond the horizon. I rush through the front door and crash down at your feet, ignoring the way you startle back.

I drop the golden heart at your feet. Hopping back a few steps and cocking my head at you, trying to speak of my harmless intentions through a few chirps of greeting. Your eyes are saucer-like when you finally look down at me, gaze sliding from my delighted frame to the small locket at your feet. You blink a few times more, processing this new development, before you bend down and gently pick up the gift laid at your feet.

Your eyes are full of wonder, and when you look down at me again, your smile is genuine instead of forced for the first time in a while. I fluff my feathers up in pride and watch as you clasp the necklace around your throat. You pull back and then pat it against your chest. Then you’re smiling down at me one final time before you shift to lay back down. When you fall asleep, your face is unclouded, some of the tension that usually plagues it gone. As the first few rays of the rising sun peek through the missing window, I am already planning what my next gift will be.