So I was walking up the steps to the Shinto Shrine in my neighborhood, when I heard this whoosh above my head. I looked up, and saw this big black crow gliding up in front of me, and then coming to rest on the branch of a large tree. I looked up, and saw two more crows sitting just beyond. Watching. Waiting. Images of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds flashed in my minds, along with an old Viking movie whose name I can’t remember where a guy got his eyes gouged out by some angry bird. Were they mad at me? Did I do something wrong? Did I anger the Shinto Gods? Lord have mercy, I hope not. I tried my crow call, (caw caw caw) which usually scares them away, but they don’t budge. They look at me. I’m certain ther’re deciding which eye to pluck out first before they send me plunging down the steps to a painful death.
I remember the first time I killed a crow. I was on my first ever hunting trip. Actually it was the only time I’d ever killed a crow. We went looking for doves, and a bunch of crows started flying overhead. Or a herd of crows or whatever you call a large number of crows flying in formation. I looked at my dad, and he gave me the go-ahead. So I closed my eyes, pointed my shotgun in the sky, and pulled the trigger. Naturally, because the crows were so thick, I hit one. I felt kind of bad. It’s not like the crow did anything to me. But from a skill standpoint, it was pretty easy. Close your eyes and shoot. Not nearly as a hard as I thought it would be.
It’s wierd when you think about it. That is how some people live their lives. You just go through, not giving much thought, and just close your eyes and shoot. I’m sure that most people, like you, have been able to consider at one time or another what would happen if you were to design your life. Instead of pulling the trigger and hoping to get something, you were able to develop a foolproof plan that would make it almost impossible to not get what you want. Luckily, once you start to realize, now, how easy it is to set your sights on what you want, when you pull the trigger, you naturally can enjoy the benefits. And you know how to enjoy the benefits, do you not?
So after I got home, I looked up crows on google. Of course the first article that came up was how crows that hang out at shinto shrines have a tendency to eat peoples eyeballs when you least expect it. Go figure. Actually, that’s not what it said at all. It said that crows like to nest in places like small hills with lots of tall trees. And in when they have baby crows hatching, they suddenly become very aggressive and protective of their babies. I checked my watch, and sure enough, it was crow hatching season, not eyeball eating season. And here I was thinking the crows were gunning for my eyes, and they were thinking I had come to eat their children. Now me and crows get along just great.