Walking through a sun-filled day, enjoying the shade given by the large old trees, I came up a small hill to the town cemetery. Large crows making a racket descended toward one grave.
They are such intelligent birds, I wondered what had their attention and stopped to watch.
Falling silent, the crows went into the ground.
Gawking, I stopped and waited for the crows to reappear. A wind gently stirred the trees. There must be a hole in the ground which I couldn’t see, I decided.
Looking for traffic, I started across the street but couldn’t lift my feet. My shoes felt anchored to the pavement. Run, my mind shouted. Go the other way.
Then the crows emerged from the earth.
My breath caught.
I swallowed hard. They carried something.
A large body.
The crows carried a limp, black-clothed body with their claws.
Loudly cawing, the birds flew up past the trees, lifting their burden into the blue sky. A black cloud rapidly grew above them. Cawing all the way, the crows took the body into the black cloud.
Then the cloud and birds disappeared, leaving me wreathed in a quiet, late summer day.
I stayed almost frozen, attention shifting between where the black cloud was before and the grave. After some seconds I blinked, refusing to grasp what I saw.
The grave was gone. Unmarked green grass grew where the crows had entered.
Suspecting I probably wouldn’t remember any of this, I strode on, picking up speed. Glancing back over my shoulder, I struggled to recall, what did I see back there?
Laughing at my failing memory, I went down the street, soaking up the late summer day, saying hello to a person on a bike going the other way.
Lifting my face, I deeply inhaled. The weather felt wonderful. Anything is possible on a day like this, I thought.
I looked forward to what it would be.
Michael Seidel, writer 