It's hard to focus when you're trying to decide whether you should slap the child or the parent. Very hard actually...
This has turned into a chicken and egg deal. Well, I need to get to another thought so I will flip a coin. Tails, smack the child.
Earlier in the week I went outside and some kind of ice storm had swept over the United States. I can't help but feel like this has something to do with the mental rot as of late, but it provoked a trip to the woods to consult with the spirits.
The trip itself took much longer than it usually does, 4 hours instead of 1 because the ice on the road was formidable. When I arrived I immediately started a fire to summon the visions and for warmth. This time I did not need any sort of sacrifice, which is good because it's cold and everyone has brought their pets inside. The crow approached me and asked if people still dress up like a high contrast mime and use his name for themselves. "Yes..." I said, "they are all still horrible.
The crow sighed. He wishes he could do something but he doesn't have the ability to haunt their dreams anymore. Cell phones, ipads, ipods, penicillin, irrigation, 3-d movies and all manner of modern nonsense have separated man from his instinctive fear that the animal lords provoked in him. His feathers were fading into ashen gray and I realized I may not have many years left with the crow.
"Anyway..." he lit a cigar and began puffing on it, "what have you come out here for?
"Wisdom."
"It's cold, wear a jacket. Anything else?"
"Yeah, lately I haven't been feeling like myself," I told him.
"Well maybe you're becoming someone else."
"What? I didn't understand that?"
"Oh sorry, wrong font. I said perhaps you are becoming someone else. Perhaps you are tired of who you were."
"No, that can't be crow, I do not like who I am becoming."
"You don't always become who you want to be. Maybe you're becoming someone you don't want to be because you are letting it happen."
"..."
"Have you done everything you can to grow or sharpen your talons?"
"No..."
"Well what HAVE you been doing?"
"Watching Adam Sandler movies."
"..." The crow looked stern and then said "wait... like seriously?! What the fuck is wrong with you!?"
"It wasn't my choice!!! There was nothing I could do! I'm staying over there and I can't very well"
"YOU'VE STILL GOT LEGS ASSHOLE! YOU COULD HAVE LEFT" the crow interrupted. "Those movies are a crime against humanity, and while you may not have been directly responsible for those crimes you still did nothing... nothing..."
"I got sick to my stomach!"
"THAT DOESN'T COUNT AND YOU KNOW IT!"
I lowered my head in shame as the crow began his rant.
"If you have fallen to the point to where you could stand to watch an Adam Sandler movie without leaving or destroying anything then this change that is taking place in you may be more extreme than I thought. This is not a good change Jack. If you do not do something to re-acquire the fire you once had you may very well lose it forever.
The words are not endless. If you do not feed the nuclear furnace of your mind then you could experience a meltdown from which you might never be able to recover."
"What do I do crow?"
"Go back to the library."
"But the late charges!"
"You don't HAVE to check anything out. You could sit there and read couldn't you? I mean, you still know how to read after watching an Adam Sandler movie don't you?"
"I... think... I think I do."
"Hrmm... Then read this," he dropped something to the ground which I picked up. It was a piece of paper and on it was what looked like a list. It read:
Doves
Pigeons
Swallows
Tits
I read the list aloud.
"Good," said the crow, "the Sandler movie did not destroy the entirety of your mind."
"But what is this list?"
"Oh, I was making out a 'birds I want to die' list so that when I finally fade into the winds of my ancestors I will know who's bloodlines to poison with my hateful spirit venom."
"..."
"But that's another story. You must go back to your land and people now and do what you can to recuperate that which you have lost."
I nodded and thanked the crow. He acknowledged me and I began to walk away.
"HEY! Do you have a gun in your truck?!" the crow quickly asked.
"No... why?"
"FUCK," he said, "some uppity dove is sleeping up there and I want it to DIE!."
I smiled and left. The bloodthirsty crow spirit was right and I knew then that there was much work to be done.
