As Far As The Crow Flies

It is a quiet night at the Mabuchi residence—Otoosan snoozed on the couch, Okaasan messaged people on her cell phone, and the TV displayed the news and the promising weather forecast of tomorrow actually being a few blessed degrees cooler (at 32 degrees Celsius…). She sat at the table and diligently finished her homework and even wrote out the chapter’s kanji onto flash cards. Her head had been hurting for a while, and she was getting tired, but it wasn’t even 7:30 yet when she finished for the night and headed up to her room.

Her room. No longer “their room”; but considering that Katie is now re-settled in the dorm they had shared previously to the Home-stay, al is well. There’s actually a breeze tonight, since the humidity finally rallied itself together into a solid rain—one of the best sounds, sights, smells, and feelings in the world if anybody were to ask her.

The dark clouds seem to stroll lazily across the sky, shifting here and there so that the rain lets up for a moment and the paler shades of grey are able to come forth to further contrast the dappled canopy. Small bats flit about, catching those blasted mosquitoes that are becoming quite the nuisance. She remarked the other night with a goofy grin on her upturned face to Okaasan that she liked bats. Yet again one of the acquaintances she has made in Japan couldn’t seem to fathom the strange affinity she has for things (first Crows, then snakes, now bats… poor Okaasan ^^;; ). But she’ll always like bats, because they remind her of her first time realizing that they weren’t just tiny birds flying at night back when she had lived in Ludington.

And crows. Where to even begin with why she likes crows... Lately she can’t help but smile when she sees them since they’re now keeping tabs on her. Really, though. She (and Katie, too, when she was here) has to ride her bike down the street in Nagahama where there’s a turf war going on between the night cats and the King Crow and his flock. Practically every morning—by the parking lot the cats like to stalk because of the tall grass surrounding it—the ground is absolutely littered with great black feathers; and the crows will be sitting together (at least six or seven of them) on top of the building next to it, cackling and cawing away into the quiet morning. And now their sentries are posted on her ride to school, with even the Hikone crows aware and watching her pass on her bike from the train station to school. This afternoon as she was waiting for the train home, one even seemed to come down and play on the tracks before her specifically to entertain her—perhaps even defying the King Crows orders to maintain a distance until they could be certain she isn’t a spy for the cats (which, honestly, she desperately wishes to remain neutral and continue playing both sides for loose feathers and a companionable meow every now and again).

But for now the crows are silent, and all that can be heard outside her open window is the quiet murmur of a city turning in for the night to the tune the cicadas sing.