A Murder of crows

          The crow had been staring at him all morning, the rising sun glinting off its narrow black eyes; a ravenous hunger echoing deep within. The Arizona sun had not yet heated the desert sand, beneath the bird's talons, to frying pan temperature, and so the two continued their dance; both parties locked in an uncomfortable staring contest. Bound and gagged, Jensen struggled against the rough ropes that held his body immobile; a bruised and bloodied pile of hot meat, wrapped and ready to serve to the many scavengers who called this sand and scrub brush wasteland their home. Even faced with the certainty of starvation, dehydration, and fatal sunburn; nothing struck fear into the man's forsaken soul more than this black harbinger. The feathered angel of death, its eyes the dark luminescence of hellfire, would surely flay the flesh from his bones long before any more merciful fate could claim his soul.



          Jensen could feel the matted blood and sand caking his usually Hollywood-styled auburn locks. His debts had finally caught up with him, the bookies had made their last call, and this washed up card shark had played his last hand. Sure he could have folded early, taken his substantial winnings and caught the red-eye back to Jersey; back to Maria and little Jimmy. He would have had enough for the three of them to disappear somewhere south; till the heat died down, his debts were forgotten, and his name dissolved into obscurity.But, just as it always did, the old beast had clawed its way to the surface, and greed had gotten the best of him. Greed, the most primeval of sins, and the most seductive of its six compatriots, had been this cardholder's greatest weakness from the moment he had won his very first game of dice on his childhood street corner. Rather than play smart and fold early, Jensen had played up his suave, James Bond-like, image and had gone for the gusto. He had bet the proverbial farm and lost it all. His image of confidence and false bravado shattered, there had been little chance of sweet talking his way out of things come time to square up with the house. Needless to say, his cheap suit had done little to pad the beating he had received when he came up short, nor did his fast talk save him from this midnight dispatch in the middle of this deserted purgatory.



          There were no cheap card tricks now, just a doomed man and a diminutive, feathered, demon; each waiting on opposite sides of Fate's court, waiting for judgement to come calling. The crow bulked its ruffled neck-feathers, looking like a fifties era greaser in a turf challenge. A telltale flutter overhead sent tremors of fear throughout Jensen's core. Like the Biblical seventh trumpet, the sound announced the inevitable; hell had come for him. Before the trembling man's begging eyes, the bird began to strut forward, each step in the sand like the ticking of some sinister clock against his heart. All the while the flapping overhead echoed in his ears like a rising and ominous thunder. The broken man blinked away desperate tears and his eyes met those of the crow once again; they burned like smoldering coals into his own . The flapping all round them grew to a furious roar, like the taunting of a thousand demons. Jensen had only the time for one last internal cry for mercy, and then the Murder were upon him.