CROW
Flash fiction by Linda S. Gunther
The devil is in the details, or so they say. Who says that? I don’t know. But what I do know is that there’s a crow outside my window and he’s staring at me like the devil would when he wants to seduce me into something unkind, decadent, selfish.
“What do you want?” I scream.
He can’t hear me through the double paned window but I know he sees my face, my teeth, my sneer.
His beak opens and he crows. I can’t hear him, but I can see him. I imagine what he sounds like. Caw, caw, caw. His head tilts. His message to me is harsh. He scoots over on the slumped telephone line close to my picture window. His head moves left and right, his eyes fixed on me standing there in my black fleece robe and red flannel night gown. He wants me to accept his verdict: guilty, inadequate. I smirk and gaze beyond his sleek, shiny black body, out to the ocean. In the late afternoon, the fog has arrived and the sky is a bland light gray. The sea is like steel, almost black. The day is dwindling away. Heavy rain is predicted. High winds. All day, I hadn’t done a thing you’d call productive except scream at a crow who couldn’t hear me. I feel the heat of his scrutiny. He flies away. Dismisses me from his world.
Linda S. Gunther is author of six suspense novels: Ten Steps From The Hotel Inglaterra, Endangered Witness, Lost In The Wake, Finding Sandy Stonemeyer, Dream Beach, and most recently, Death Is A Great Disguiser. Linda’s essays and short stories have also been featured in numerous literary publications.
