kill him and his family members one by one. He
wanted to snap their cocking heads and see them
twitch and die in their own blood, but he was
too afraid to touch them. The fact that he could
never get close enough to kill one was part of the
fear. They were too fast. He was afraid to purchase
a gun because the crows might just force him to
turn it on himself. Even if he killed hundreds, he
knew that a thousand more would hatch from
eggs gestating in nests of thorns beneath a mocking autumn moon.
“Jimmy, you’re zoning out.” Jeffries waved his
hand in front of Jimmy’s eyes.
Before Jimmy could reply, the one sound he
dreaded most in the world found its way through
the open window and into his ear drums.
Ca-caw!
After the meltdown in Dr. Jeffries’ office,
Jimmy was strapped to a stretcher, loaded into an
ambulance, transported to Van Wie Psychiatric
Hospital.
He stayed there for a week and a half, but
beds were in constant demand and his father’s
insurance would not cover the full two weeks he
needed, so he was discharged early.
Though he was glad to be home, the treatment
had been incomplete. All they did was remove
one Z and put a T, Thorazine, in its place. He
found that this new regimen only muddied his
thought processes instead of addressing the actual
problem. It made it difficult for him to arrive at
any concise emotion besides complacency. His
sense of identity had been melon-balled out.
Each day he’d go for long walks, usually ending
up at the mall where he’d spend all of his cash
on Taco Bell, candy bars and CDs. Boosting his
serotonin levels was his only motivator.
Even on the new meds, Jimmy felt dull twinges
of nervousness every time he saw a crow. Whenever this happened, he’d perform a mental exercise
his counselor at the hospital had taught him. He
would focus on the spaces in between thoughts,
and picture negative thoughts as boxcars just
going on by.
As time went on and the unwanted thoughts
became more intrusive, Jimmy found he ha d
to do this exercise often. Thirty days after his
discharge, he had to perform it once every other
minute. There were just too many crows and other birds pecking, flapping, twitching, and arrogantly cocking their heads. They reminded him of
his mother, whose cancer had spread to her brain.
His father had broken that news over dinner.
Upon hearing it, Jimmy speared his piece of steak
with a fork, threw his plate against the wall and
stormed upstairs.
Instead of sleeping that night, he ruminated
over the empty socket behind his mother’s eyepatch: a hole infinitely black, similar to a crow’s
eye. What kind of consciousness dwelled behind
those glassy marbles? How did crows perceive the
world around them? What did they think of us if,
in fact, they thought at all?
After another couple of weeks, Jimmy began
to hate his meds. The dizzy spells when he stood
up and the overall blankness of his mood bothered him more than anything. He stopped taking
them.
His abstinence from medication lasted only a
month. When the police found him ranting and
raving about crows in the middle of a city park,
he was immediately sent back to Van Wie.
Most days, in between therapy groups, he sat
on the floor of his room drawing diagrams of
crows with a black marker and labeling each of
their organ systems in red. He wanted to understand them. What foul magic made them run?
Whose sinister design were they? He had to find
out. The stability of his existence depended on it.
He was in the middle of labeling a diagram of a
crow’s heart when he heard a knock on the door.
“Jimmy?” A staff person named Edwin was at
the door. “You have a phone call.”
Edwin led Jimmy to a phone booth with a
Plexiglas door.
Jimmy flopped into the chair and lifted the
receiver.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Jimmy, it’s Dad.”
“Oh. Hey, Dad. What do you want?”
“Jimmy, it’s about your mother.”
Jimmy’s heart sank. He already knew the outcome of this conversation.
“The doctors say she’s got about a month to
live.”