The What the Crow Knows

After the cry had echoed its last lament, Mr. Storykeeper asked, “Who else wishes to speak?”
A rackety tumult of wings announced the entrance of the entire Crow-Company as they flapped their way to the Speaker’s Rock, forming a shimmery blanket of blue-black around the granite slab. They settled here, there and everywhere, all, that is, except one--a large, shiny fine-feathered bird who took her place at the highest point.

Receiving a nod from Grey Elephant, and more than ready to set others upon the proper path, the formidable bird began her speech. “Listen up!” she called out to the crowd of animals.
Of course, they had no choice but to listen up--as always with crows, her piercing call filled WEarth with its raucous power.

"Unlike lesser folk, crows do not beat around the bush!” Crow-Lady announced to the crowd.

"Unlike lesser folk, crows are adaptable! Crows make do!”

Some animals took umbrage at her words--lesser folk, indeed! But what could you do with crows? Incorrigible creatures, crows.

"Because of our unusual flexibility, we were able to go straight to the source! Oh, yes! Crows moved into Rect-World to get the real story! And, let me add, not without sacrifice! The noise, the food, the plastic bags, the insects! Oh, how we suffer!

"Yet, in spite of ever-increasing danger and discomfort, we have seen through to the truth; we have comprehended the difference between reality and mirage, between reflection and narcissism. We have succeeded where others only fail!

"And the secret to Crow success? Well you may ask! And well may Crow-Lady tell you!” Her voice took on a darkly intimate tenor as she revealed the great crow-discovery.

"Windows!” she said, sending the word wafting out over the crowd where it would fall into each ear, clear, bell-like, transparent and perfectly understood. Such was the assumption of Crow-Lady, indeed, such were the assumptions of her kind.

Windows...Windows...Windows? The echo carried from one end of the crowd to the other as the animals reflected on Crow-Lady’s meaning. Was she, once again, off on some off-beat, outlandish, insular, conceptual crow-tangent? Who could figure out the crow mind? Who would want to? Such were the assumptions of certain animals, more than once frustrated and perplexed by densely shaded and convoluted crow-talk.

Undaunted, indeed, undimmed by the crowd’s less than enthusiastic response, Crow-Lady continued.

"Windows! Yes, windows! A bird’s worst enemy! But crows have turned the tables--they’re on our side now.”

Tables? Sides? Had crows had been too long in Rect-World?

Casting a sharp eye on the crowd of animals, the great bird declared, “Crows look through them!”

Hmmm?

"Oh, yes! Instead of flying into windows like other winged wonders, crows look through them. Brilliant, you say? Well, it took crows to crack that particular illusion...”
A soft insistent cooing emanated from the crowd, interrupting the bird’s insistent litany. “Crow Lady, Crow Lady, with all due respect, does the word “pigeon” ring a bell? Pigeon? Are you not aware that pigeons were on windowsills before crows even knew Rect-World existed?”

"Precisely my point!” retorted the crow. The very idea! A pigeon questioning a crow! Of all the feather-brained nonsense! “Pigeons have been in Rect World so long they’re blind as bats...”
With these words, a fluttery turbulence blackened the sky as a dark whirlwind of fearsome bat-ire rose above the animals’ heads--up, up, up, and then swooping down, down, down as one bat after the next came less than a feathers-breadth away from the arrogant head bird before soaring up again.

But the fearless crow did not deign to duck. Much. “Settle down!” she called to the careening bats, her feathers fairly crackling with impatience. “Enough petty squabbles! Crow-Lady has important things to say!”

The bats took one final ominous loop and then retreated to hang by their toes in disgruntled but quiet resignation. Like the pigeons, they knew how fruitless it was to argue with a crow who would insist on having the last word. Forevermore!

Close to satisfied that proper respect was being paid at last, the big bird said, not without irony, “Thank you for your kind attention! Without further interruption, Crow-Lady will continue.
“Sitting in the arms of the Rooted-Ones, crows watch.

"Day in, day out, crows watch.

"Sitting in the arms of the Rooted-Ones, much is revealed.

"Day in, day out, much is revealed.

" Behind Rect-World windows, there are stories--oh yes! The stories Crow-Lady could tell! Of Who-Mans engaged in activities no self-respecting spider would indulge in...but another time...another time...

"You see, the story is not inside Who-Man boxes--it is inside the animal-boxes where the real strangeness lies, where things happen--things hard to credit, things even crows in all their wisdom have a hard time believing...

"Things you ignorant Wilds need to know!

"Oh, yes.

"Some of the biggest animal-boxes, larger than prairie-dog towns used to be, contain Domesticates living crammed together tighter than maggots on a dead duck. Oh, yes! Believe what Crow-Lady tells you! All their lives are spent inside these walls--no sun, no stars, no clans, no homelands--chained down, or in cages so small they couldn’t scratch an itch to save their lives!”

A uneasy rustle ran through the crowd of animals--a life without movement? Without clan-ties, without the company of Sister Sun and Brother Moon?

Crow-Lady, pleased to find her audience captive at last, went on. “Of course Domesticates never have to worry about hunger, far from it--but they pay, oh, how they pay. Besides their own kind, they never see another living thing, plant or animal, except for the odd Who-Man who brings them food--nasty boring stuff crows won’t touch, (although pigeons might)--sometimes made from the wretched dead bodies of their own kind.

"And that’s not the half of it! Who-mans have probed their being-codes until these creatures no longer know who they are. Co-Species Pacts, animal-autonomies--all forgotten! And even if they had traditions, there is no way to pass them on. Males and females are kept apart, young separated from old, babies often taken away at birth. Any remnant urges to forge clan ties are simply torture to these beasts because such bonding is impossible! Whatever remaining intelligence they maintain only reveals the extent of their misfortune.

"Pity the poor pigs! They have no equal in suffering--and pity any Wild unfortunate enough to live nearby these poisonous hog-holes. Some time ago uncounted pigs drowned in droves when an angry river full of sickened fish rose to take revenge.

"Pity the poor cows, who become mad and diseased, and are killed and burned by Who-Mans. Pity the poor chickens, who pass on harmful agents to Who-Mans only to be take away and burned by the millions. Wasteful lives, wasteful deaths!
“And theirs is a death without honor, a humiliation forced upon them. They are allowed no last exhilarating battle, no last quickening run to begin their journey to the other side. After this passive ignoble end, their rank and fear-tainted bodies are delivered to the tables of Who-Mans where they are consumed without ritual, without respect for their overwhelming sacrifice of both life and death.

"Their mean endings insult Mother Death--still, death in whatever fashion releases them from unspeakable bondage, from unlivable lives. Crows have seen that these animals are born, live, and die in ways no creature, even a Domesticate, deserves.”

Crow-Lady paused here to take stock of her audience. Smart bird that she was, she knew that Wilds too often simply went about their business and ignored what was happening around them...indeed, this head-in-the-sand attitude had forced the far-seeing Crow-Company to take action, even against the advice of many of their members.

Many in the Company had doubted the wisdom of moving to Rect-World, and their arguments continued to grow as crows fell dead from the deadly bites of small flying creatures called mosquitoes. Crows, unlike frogs, were not interested in foolhardy self-sacrifice, and recently the Company had advised its members to leave Rect-World. But Crows were finding, like the Deer Populace, that Rect-World followed them wherever they went. There was no escape anymore.

Was this to be the crow-reward? Lost homelands, lost lives? Had the Crow Company unwittingly given away too much?

All the more reason for Wilds to listen and take heed! Other deaths might go unnoticed, but crow-sacrifice must not be taken for granted by any ungrateful, ignorant Wild!
During her musings, Crow-Lady noticed that her tales had caused a bristling within the ranks of the animals. Many Wilds were suspicious, refusing to see Domesticates as either heroes or victims. Yet...the reports were disturbing. Domesticates and Who-Mans often behaved oddly--but madness, burnings, drownings?

Crow-Lady concluded with dark words of warning: “Wilds must not ignore the Domesticate plight, or disregard their sacrifices and efforts to fight the Who-Mans who imprison them! If conditions do not improve for all animals, Domesticate and Wild alike will be forced to rely on Who-mans for survival. That, as the crow knows only too well, will mean the end of WEarth.”

A wild racket of hoots and howls followed Crow-Lady’s words.

“WEarth Forever! Rect-World Never!” the audience cried. And also “Born Wild, die Wild!”