The Notorious Crows

It's 2am. I'm dead tired trying to cram 16 contact hours worth of course material in a night. I'm walking back from the library to to my hostel room in a daze. Everything I've read has turned into spagetti in my head. The facts and figures are flashing past my eyes. I really need to catch some Zs.

I hear a raindrop of sorts, just that the splash had a lower pitch and a higher volume than I'm accustomed to. The sound wasn't singular, similar sounds followed. I was walking under a canopy of trees that lined either side of the street and was home to many birds, supposedly crows. The street itself was a black canvas adorned with contrasting white splash paint. A more careful examination and the paint at many places was fresh and wet. I was walking on bird droppings. The ominous sounds continued, the crows were at it, dead into the night, clearing their systems with no forewarning to the passerbys. Splash, it must've been a few meters ahead, towards the right side of the road; another splash, must have been behind me, but it wasn't too far; a drop falls right in front of me, the splash sound follows; I realize I'm under fire.

I dash right and left, left and right. The drops follow, as if predicting my location at a future time instant and accordingly releasing their load. It's as if one missed and communicated it to the birds ahead who, having readied their intestines, were waiting to attack me, the harmless worked-up student, and have a few laughs, or maybe chirps, at. I was helpless, outnumbered and void of strategy. Luckily, I had the support of supposedly superior gray matter, that went into defensive mode trying to dodge droppings by deciphering the splash pattern on the street and randomly choosing the next location my foot should land on so as to minimize chances of a soiled t-shirt or worse still soiled hair with residual fluids flowing down on my face.

I made it safely this time. But something tells me, the crows have made a note of my escape. The next time my invisible enemies see me walking alone in the middle of the night after a long day of mostly day dreaming and a little reading, they will have their way. But I can bear a little inconvenience, if it truly brings joy and, maybe a sense of victory, to a lot other creatures.