By Haniya JavedThe story of a crow

Once upon a time, P-crow sat on a tree, his eyes fixed on the approaching boy. The boy was munching on a buttered toast, lost in thought. The P-crow made a direct aim for the boy, snatched the buttered toast and came back to the same position. The boy shot the P-crow an angry look and moved on.

The P-crow found the buttered toast too dry for his tastes. He looked around to find four crows drinking together from a pail of water. He hurried to the pail, hushed them away and tipped the pail so that it came down crashing on the ground. He soaked the buttered toast in water, sat comfortably and picked on the butter, bit-by-bit, oblivious to the wary looks of others.

The ‘caw caw’ noise in the distance brought the P-crow back from his trance. He rushed to the path of the noise and found fellow crows encircling M-crow corpse. Four crows jumped on a tree branch and tore it apart. Another two, grabbed hold of baby crow and dragged him in circles. One crow jumped on papa crow and pounded his head repeatedly with its beak. The rabbits, the cat, the cows, the goats and the elephants looked from a distance and clicked their tongues. Tch tch. The big A-crow came and issued order that all rebels should be pelted with stones. The crows ended up breaking each other necks while the other animals look on, their voices muffled with frequent, tch tch.  

P-crow meditates over the whole scene later at night. He decides to leave the crows alone and form alliance with lions. The next morning he visits the King of the Jungle. The king promises him abundant benefits in exchange of the grant to the crow’s territory. The P-crow agrees and returns to its own tree and suspects suspicion from his own people. He brushes all concerns aside. Then when the other crows are distracted elsewhere, he visits each tree and kicks the eggs to the ground. The crows return, enraged. They wail and protest. The P-crow calms them down and renders the whole situation as ‘j-conspiracy.’ The other crows get baffled by P-crow’s smartness. So, from then on whenever anything happened, the P-crow’s words of wisdom were repeated. All madness was indeed nothing but ‘j-conspiracy.’

So, this madness thrives. P-crow continues to live as a puppet, passing his days shitting over the heads of other crows. He visits the lions once every two months where he eats like a glutton, brings loads of benefits home and sits back to watch them multiply. The other crows-which are barely able to fly- come to him with new ideas to make their own food, buttered or not; they no longer care. They stare in shock at the P-crow’s rounded belly. P-crow gives them all a cursory glance and waits in earnest for fresh lamb of which he has grown greatly fond of recently.