A man had a cut on his palm, more red than painful. Crows dove from the sky, aiming at his hand. He stumbled through low grass, circled by shadows. In a place where the grass grew higher and the wind sang through, he pushed his way into a novel, where the world was white and calm. He looked back. He heard knocks on the hardback surface. Suddenly, a crow's beak pierced the cover then another and another, like little black saws.

"You crows," he said. "You crows."

Inside the novel, he had difficulty remembering how he'd cut his hand. The ax, was it? The bread knife? Glass?

The hole grew wider and through it he saw peeking the eye of a crow and then more eyes, like grape clusters, as if the birds wanted to observe.

It occured to him that he had a taste for kiwi. And so, he considered that the cut might have been caused by kiwi, or onions, and a knife.


11/24/09