Diruktober Day 13: Crow

   Diruktober is a DIR EN GREY themed inktober challenge by re_be_ka_f. I chose to use them as writing prompts to join in on the fun. 

Crunch is the sound the cat’s head made when 14-year-old Jeremy stomped on it. Its expression collapsed into a fistful of teeth, bone, and meat. What characteristic was his lack of empathy? Whispers of “psychopath,” “future serial killer,” “hide your pets and children” drove his poor mother mad. How many times could one beg to have their own son committed?

How many times were other mothers expected to clean the corpses of birds from their porches, from their beds? How many other parents had to hide corpses of neighbors pets because after the first time, apologizing just didn’t go so well?

Who else, after stepping on the littered corpse of a crow and crying as they cleaned viscera from their shoe, was expected to be patient?

It was after that day that they came in greater and greater numbers. Crows were always watching. They started gathering at the balcony, watching as Jeremy threw a dog against the side of the house by its back feet, laughing at the squawk of pain it made. They watched in judgment when she left, and when she came home.

She was driven deeper and deeper by their calls, each day another appearing to stalk her for the bad job she was doing as a parent. A crow appeared for every cracked skull and every family pet prematurely buried in her yard. A crow appeared for each time the son screamed he would do the same to her. The dogs ran. The cats ran. The crows stalked. 

When there was room for no more crows to watch from a distance, she felt them closing in. It was that day she stalked him.

When he came home from school, he trekked to the back garden to dig up a previously abused puppy corpse for fun. How else was he supposed to feel alive?

Crack was the sound the boy’s head made when his mother smashed it with a bat. The weapon’s wood was already dark with blood stains of beasts.

A dirty white paw was half dug from the ground over which Jeremy‘s mother stood. Her son’s bleeding, shivering body above that. The cracks were silenced. The caws were silenced. If one hadn’t known better they might have thought the sound had scared the crows off in a fleet. 

Jeremy‘s mother finally understood her son.