The Wanderings of a Crow

Two crows flew silently overhead, their quiet wings, charcoal black, cut sharply across the sky like tears or imperfections. It was autumn’s first cold day. Brown and red leaves hung lowly from their branches as a tired walker held a hand against their side and yawned, their clouded breath expanding amongst the morning dew: an imitation of the patient traffic beyond.

The sun rises slowly over Polis.
Golden shadow draws atop the dew-rich ground. Tired and slow, the dawn-light wakes in strands of sun-laced warmth that each in turn bring colour to the monochromatic. Amber water laps against the grey stone of the port. The flashing light atop the docklands crane pulses, the march of time beginning again as day becomes renewed.
Life too returns slowly.
Soundless at first, the rustle of drifting wind shakes dew from the weary leaves, droplets hitting the cobbled ground as if rain that falls in waxing or waning. Heavy footfall and the murmur of conversation builds with the rising autumn sun. A distant engine roars into life. Birdsong calling to the relief of day.

Sleeplessly, Artyom takes rest on wharf-way’s bench and gazes across the docklands of Polis, the foam capped ocean waveless but stirring with discontent.
Closing his eyes, he breathes a warmth into his hands and then listens to the rumble of a bicycle passing before him, the clatter of its wheels upon the wooden pier, the breath of its rider.
Breathing in, he places his hand against the painted wood of the bench and feels its roughness against his calloused fingers. Fading, decay, salt and ash, life has been unkind to those who live in the harbours of Polis. Northern winds passing by the city’s foundry bring cloud and memories of work. Work that is soon to begin again.
Opening his eyes, Artyom again clasps at his side and remembers the faded pain from a rib, broken long ago. His breath, tired for coughing, labours for a long moment as he searches in his coat for a nip of menthol. He is older now. The ease of his walking now more of a burden as the season grows colder.

‘A dreary morning.’ A fragile voice, comments from the path behind. Rounding the bench a man of faint appearance approaches Artyom with a nod of genial greeting and then sits with a slow rustle.
The man is old, a suit of faded tweeds and almost seems to wither upon his wire frame, as the man’s graceful movements came to rest. Artyom considered this man and imagined him as an oak slumbering peacefully in the parklands behind them. There was a patience to his manner that had seen a lifetime of dreary days such as this.

‘It is.’ Artyom replies, his breath still not recovered enough for conversation.

‘I’m quite fond of the crow,’ the old man idly comments, breaking the moment’s silence and gently gesturing to a pair hopping beakishly along a length of rusted chain that separated the wharf from the rock-hewn waters below.
‘They’ve always been here, even before the port. Just a harbour then. Faint outlines of fainter faces looking to the Autum as a time of urgency, a time of gathering. But the crow never seems to mind the seasons. They perch, they wait, time seems to be kinder to them than it is to you or I.’
‘You work in the foundry?’ the man questions, a sudden change of wind waking Artyom from half-dream; the crows too taking flight and disappearing into the grey of the harbour.

‘I do,’ Artyom replies meekly, pulling his coat across his shoulders and shirking from the cold, ‘I’ve been there quite a while now. Longer than I’d care to think on. The troubles of the past and all.’

‘The sky was clear, once,’ the man continues, unheeding of his last question, ‘I’m sure you’d remember. The mist would fall from the eastern mountains and sunrise would envelop the town in oranges and golds. Quiet streets were covered by leaves, and the dew-combed grass would rest softly under weary feet.’

‘A time before, perhaps.’

The man’s face shadowed sadly at the comment. He bows his head and stares into cupped his hands as though holding a memory to precious put away.’
‘Perhaps,’ he replies after some time, ‘I seem to forget my age, the age of us all. Shall we walk?’

Checking his watch, Artyom frowns, noticing that it had stopped; the growing cloud from the foundry’s chimneys a sign that he had missed his shift.
Sighing, he straines to his feet and stamps warmth into his toes. Dull pains felt in every joint and bone.
‘We shall, it seems we shall.’

Pacing slowly the two men make their way along the wharf-front and speak sparingly of wind and of weather. The weather, in time, turns towards memories and memories to the talk of days beyond.
The foundry reached, Artyom bids goodbye to the stranger of reds and browns, happy even though he had not found the time to ask his name.
He was to retire; the men had come to agree. With time still in kindness, he would walk the full length of Polis’s harbour and then into the next harbour beyond. Two coastlines of stone and of pine were all that had separated Arytom from the town of his birth, and it was in his wanderings that he remembered the beauty of his home when covered by Autumn’s first snow.

With small steps, great distances can be covered, and with patience, no distance is beyond greatness.

For the last time, Arytom stepped into the foundry.
Above, a crow took flight from its perch.     

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J. McCray
2024