my friend, this girl – Julia Moses

February 11, 2025

One time my friend was walking down the rainy streets, the hazy grey of Halifax or maybe it was clear blue I don’t even know, maybe it was clear blue and it’s an entirely different land than what I want to imagine. She was walking and I’m thinking of gull sounds and I’m thinking of a circle skirt and straightened hair trying its best to remain tame despite the wind, of a brick laid sidewalk although it was likely pavement. A crow passed over her golden hair and swooped down and it clawed at her head, she felt the talons dig into her scalp ruffle her hairs like the claw machine at the Arcade. The crow wanted her for her own, wanted her tiny body to warm his nest to make his house a home, to care for the treasures he collected within it. The crow saw a future where he would dote upon her and bring her home ribbons and shiny wrappers of gum and bits of tinsel. She would become the perfect companion, a crow’s dream girl. But my friend, this girl, was afraid. And although she was just tiny enough for the crow to swoop down and carry her away if say she willed it enough, if she used all of her magic, she was afraid and so she pressed her toes into the pavement and prayed to stay on flat ground, keeping them flat on the brick laid sidewalk or the pavement or whatever it was. It worked. The crow flew away off to the nearest lamp post and cawed and cawed, cried and cried. Caws of anger, of humiliation, desperate shrieks calling after her. Indignant cries to the street and to the sea. Is that time when she crossed the crow, refused to succumb to his will, the beginning of our misfortunes, of our losses, our collective missed opportunities and inability to find the magic we’ve been searching for. Is that day the first of some curse laid upon us, some spell cast into the ether as a warning to us all. Our own headstrong pride becomes the thing in the way of completing our destinies, living out our fantasies. Were we meant to stay protected in the forest with the crows? Was that the invitation we’ve spent so much time searching for?