En Bref (Short Stories)

Red Crow (Suspense, Romance)

Murder, they call a flock of crows. And Anna could never get enough of either.

The night vibrates with the crows' song. The moon is waning. The ever-widening circles through the dark streets take Anna away from her apartment building. The crows lead, her heart follows.

The cars cannot break the solitude of the black-winged flight. They are in a rush, but she isn't. She is soaring over the streets, soaring and circling.

There is a death in the making on the bridge hanged by a thousand nooses over the black river. A man is eyeing the drop, the ghost of murder grows larger from his midnight shadow. Electric light bleaches his russet hair to parchment, blackens everything else.

She lands on the tarmac, her wings folded into a leather coat, talons—to gloved hands.

"The water is too cold to go a-swimming," she whispers. "And there are many things you've left unfinished on this shore."

He gapes and stammers. In his denial she teases out the kernels she can poke on. "It could work out," she says. "This sounds interesting. Try that."

You have so much to live for remains unsaid, but it hangs in the air, doing the job.

"It's as if I have known you from my past life," he says, rejuvenated.

As if his past lives were more exceptional than this one. It's easy to guess what he used to be in any given year of any given century.

The phones are produced, nearly twins, the staple of this age.

She taps in her phone number, returns the gadget with a smile. "Call me."

He will.

Then, and only then, this night's fruit will finally be ripe, like an avocado. If he wants to die, where is the fun in that? It must be a murder, or no dice.