“Crow.”

I look after two buildings and live in one of them. Most mornings I migrate from the home block to check on the second, just in case it burned down in the night. I look for bodies too and try to avoid the live ones. If I time it right most of my tenants are either still sleeping or already out. They don’t mind and neither do I. If absolutely necessary we know how to make contact. Occasionally we screw-up!

Marty from number 9 is on welfare like a lot of them. He plans his day around a trip to the swimming pool where he gets in free. He normally leaves home about 10.am. It’s a factor in my itinerary calculated to keep us apart. Marty is a nice guy, originally from Chile, but he talks. He talks a lot and sometimes simply too much.

The other morning Marty met me mid way between the two buildings. It was half ten and no sign of his swimsuit. Was the pool closed I wondered? I braced myself as we headed back towards his home. He raised familiar issues. We agreed again Bush and the US are the greatest threats to world peace, that the Church of Rome is evil and it would be good if the Canucks won the series this year. On arrival I could see the building was still standing and veered towards his apartment door ready to wrench myself away. But Marty stuck with me. May be he hoped we’d find a body. I figured at most I could soon head home alone, but inexplicably Marty had nothing better to do than return the favour and escort me to my own front door.

By now I’d lost the thread of his conversation and merely tried to punctuate it with appropriate nods and seemingly polite grunts. I was trying to conjure up an appointment or miraculous bleep from my pager. Instead I got a crow! It landed silently on my left shoulder with just a slight whoosh from its wings, so light I might easily have missed it but for Marty’s reaction.

“Oh my God! A black bird!”

Marty was already moving backwards as he spoke the words, like he’d detected leprosy on my cheek or the mark of the devil on my forehead. I’d never heard him stutter before and his face seemed to flush.

“Do you know this bird?” he asked from five feet away. I figured I’d find out any moment if he secretly wore a crucifix, whether he really disowned the church.

“Not at all,” I said, but I was thrilled by its arrival. Better than a bleeper! It was clearly a young bird, presumably hand raised after falling from its nest or brought home by someone’s cat. It pecked inquisitively at my ear and tugged gently at my ponytail. Marty was horrified.

“This is bad luck,” he spluttered. “It’s a bad omen man. I’m out of here.”

Marty hurried off down the street. There was just the two of us, me standing on the pavement and a crow on my shoulder, getting acquainted. I was tempted to take it in doors but it might not be house trained. The crow moved on to my hand. It stared me in the face, and groomed my eyebrows. It emitted strange murmurs not bird-like at all. I placed it on a tree branch, stepped back and out-stretched an arm. Instantly it alighted. It liked having its head tickled. I felt privileged. When the postman arrived he was impressed. We watched it together until suddenly it was gone.

I mused on Marty’s reaction and checked my native book about the spiritual and magical powers of creatures great and small. Crows get a good review. May be Marty’s Chilean folklore was different. I didn’t panic, but about a week later I had to go for an ultrasound. My liver was misbehaving. A package arriving from the US cost me a small fortune in brokerage. Then came worse news, my little dog was dead. Was it the crow I wonder? Surely not! I haven’t seen Marty since but there’s no deathly stench from his room. He’s probably keeping to schedule, perhaps avoiding me.

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