Flying Blindness

He listened to the conversation intently coming from the booth next to his in the small building called “City Diner” he came here because it was a strange little place that didn’t seem to mind that a person still smoked a cigarette after breakfast as long as they did it in the smoking section. He exhaled a soft plume of gray smoke as his eyes slowly drifted down to the front page of the Sutterville Times. The headline spread out across the front page: “Missing Tallmadge Girl, Sally Ann Miller, Still Not Found.“ his ears strained against the noise to hear what the two young men behind him were saying. The conversation seemed to flow around the place where the young girl was last seen.

Being new to the area Terrence Butler knew nothing about Crows Crossing Road other than there were some of those really annoying birds that lived out there. oh he’d heard the outlandish claims by the locals, the Crows that lived out there were special, no, not your run of the mill birds by any stretch, these Crows were the keepers of the spirit world. He dismissed every account as total bullshit, and had many times offered to prove that they was nothing special about the crows by going out to Crows Crossing to kill one of them, just to bring back the body to show everyone that See? I told you its just a bird.

He finished his coffee before checking his watch, as he reached across the table to stub out the cigarette butt. He could still hear the conversation as the voice's wandered through the fake plastic plants that separated the two booths. “If She’s still out there, the crows will protect her until help comes.. And if anyone has hurt that poor young girl well then.. God help them.” he rose from the booth and headed for the counter to where he paid for his breakfast. He handed the cashier a twenty and she gave him his change as he turned his head to face the rain soaked picture windows in front of City Diner. He turned back towards the waitress, “Does it ALWAYS rain here?” he asked her in an agitated tone. She smiled. “Pretty much.”

She studied him for a time before turning her attention towards the other patrons. He stepped out through the front door and headed for the pick up truck, stopping momentarily to ask a young man about to enter the establishment for directions. “What’s the quickest way to Dutton?” the young man turned and looked to the east and raised his fore finger pointing at some trees. “C.C.R. it’s right on the other side of those trees. You could go with state route 12 but it’ll take you at least three hours longer than if you take Crows Crossing.” he nodded silently as he lit another cigarette. He got into the truck and turned the key and headed for Crows Crossing Road.

Lost Along the way
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The rain wasn’t that heavy at first, as it softly tapped at the windshield of the Ford F-150 pick up truck. His thoughts sifted through the stories that he’d been hearing of this strange place, Ghost stories, stories of life and death, and the strange Birds that flew there. He drove the thoughts out of his head and tried to concentrate on the road. He never believed in shit like that, ghost stories, birds watching over the dead. It was all superstitious baloney, it had to be. He never believed in anything he’d supposed, only what he could see and touch, ever since he was a kid, always with him, there was nothing more than a world in the physical sense.

His thoughts were abruptly interrupted as he felt the Ford’s steering wheel jerk in his hands and the engine slowly began to sputter and die. Angrily, he slammed his hands on the steering wheel as he made his way to the shoulder of the road. He got out in the rain and lifted
The hood to examine the engine looking for any signs of mechanical failure. But it wasn’t until he looked up that he saw the large black shadow circling overhead. He slowly stepped away from the vehicle as the large Black crow landed on the hood and stared at him.

He paused to try to lit another cigarette shaking his head all the while. “You can’t be too damn bright if your flying around in this kind of weather” he had barely gotten the words out when the crow flew straight at him forcing him to duck and lose his footing sending him sprawling on the wet shoulder of the asphalt. Angry he began to yell at it as he rose to his knees, “Go on! Get outta here damn ya!” he threw a rock at it and the bird circled high into the sky and came again flying straight down at him. He ducked and rolled as it barely missed him, finally it came to rest on a stump just at the edge of the tree line.

Time and time again he threw rocks at it, almost hitting it several times but it remained unmoved. Now, he was beginning to get a headache, as he slowly calmed down, he began to wonder. “So.. Why are you just sitting there? Damn it, I almost hit you like six times.” he went to the cab of the Ford and pulled out the flashlight from under the seat and slowly walked towards the crow. He was a mere two feet from it when it flew through the trees and landed another ten feet away, Terrence Butler and the crow repeated the entire performance three more times before the cynical young man realized that the strange bird was trying to get him to follow it.

Finale.
~~~~~~~



Some seventy yards into the woods the game abruptly ended as the crow now had refused any further retreat from Terrence Butler. It simply sat up on a tree branch, its feathers ruffled against the softly falling rain. He shined the light around in circles several times before shining it back up at the unmoving Crow which was now looking directly down at him. He leaned back against a tree and tried to light another cigarette.
“So now what big boy? Are we just going to sit here all night?.”

He’d just barely gotten the words out when the muffled sounds of something stirring at the bottom of the ravine and a disturbing thought had both simultaneously crossed through his mind. A chill began to tug at him as he quickly looked back up at the Crow, and then finally towards the ravine.
“No way this can happen.” he thought to himself. And yet when he made his way down into the ravine, the flashlight began to illuminate the small form of a young child.

Frantically he tried to remember the name from the papers headline. “Sally Ann Miller?” he softly called out. He climbed down into the ravine and there she lay, muddy and bruised but very much alive. She whimpered softly as he picked her up and looked up at the Crow. “Ok. I believe you now. Please show me how to get us out of here.” the crow began to make its way back out of the woods towards the road with an eager Terrence Butler in tow. When he’d finally made it back to the truck he gotten out the cell phone and began to dial 911 and related the location to the operator. He wrapped the child in his coat and together he, the crow and Sally Ann Miller, all three waited for aid to arrive.

They sat in silence as Terry Butler became lost for a time in his thoughts. Finally, through the soft rapping of the rain came the first distant wails of sirens cutting through the dark afternoon sky. Once again he looked up at the crow. “You know they’re never gonna believe this.” he watched in silence as the bird returned to the sky, circling several times before disappearing. he would tell them the story several times without wavering, about the girl, about the crow. Somehow they had believed him, without question, for everyone knows as the crow knows that nothing is ever as it seems here on Crows Crossing Road.

Scratch A.B.T copyright © 2008.