Bedtime Stories: “Emilia, Who Was Not Like Other Crows”

 

Emilia was not like other crows. Crippled in a windstorm, a lonely fisherman took mercy on her mangled mess of feathers, trying his best to mend two bent-back wings but without success. Though flight proved impossible, in time Emilia learned to hop alongside her master through the bustling market. Emilia enjoyed her simple life on land, and though occasionally she couldn't help but envy those cousins who lived along the sagging power lines above, eating their fill of rubbish, she was happy to have a friend like her fisherman. Together they relished watching the pinkish spikes of light which fell across the soft Tokyo afternoon at sea, in a boat just big enough for man and bird, the fisherman always pitching the last of his bait to his patiently awaiting first mate. There came in the night another storm - much bigger than any storm before - with not just wind and rain but waves too. When all was finally calm the city had been left not unlike Emilia's broken wings. Scattered were people from their families, wrecked were their homes, but for all crows in the land a feast of eternal debris. With Emilia lost from her master, she limped along the aisles of wreckage. Why so sad? a cousin asked. Eat! We are blessed! Your belly will never again be empty! At a nearby hospital, the fisherman woke to find his legs were broken, his ship destroyed. When he heard the tiny taps through the door, though he could not move to see beside his bed, he knew it was his friend the bird. I'm so sorry, the fisherman confessed fighting tears, but I do not know how I will feed us now. He then put his head in his hands and began to cry, until Emilia leapt up on the end of the bed and let fall a fish from her beak, and together they feasted, through the window watching the pinkish spikes of light which fell across the soft Tokyo afternoon.