strictly business

Zephram and I have a professional relationship.

We met a few years ago at the park over a handful of unsalted peanuts. We made an agreement that I would visit often, feed him and his family, and he would let me look at him. Not like one of those kinky voyeur/exhibitionist relationships. I simply wanted to know more about crows. Zephram agreed to help me out.

The following spring he and his partner succeeded in fledging four babies. Four. Even when you live in a park full of green wormy lawns and picnic leftovers, that's a fuckload of wild crow babies to provide for. So I agreed to pay Zephram a little extra and he agreed to let me look at his babies. When I noticed they all had viral infections, I gave him a raise and brought that damn family fresh scrambled eggs with supplements every damn morning for almost three damn weeks. It helped, I think. Three of the babies survived. After the kids were healthy enough to do things on their own, Zephram agreed to start letting me take a closer look at him. But that's always been the depth of our relationship. Professional. No fun and games.

A few days ago I was out walking my dog when we came across a large group of neighborhood crows. They were gathering in preparation to fly to the evening roost together, as they do here in fall and winter. Most of them recognized me, and those with whom I have a more playful relationship came down to inquire as to what kind of treats I was peddling. I had dog kibble.

A few of my crow friends that like to play catch with kibbles made their presence known, and soon I had a sea of beautiful black birds at my feet all waiting for me to throw food directly into their mouths.

That's when I saw him.

Zephram. His beady greedy eyes shining out at me from the crowd. He'd been watching me, and watching the other crows play catch. He could see how advantageous that trick was in a crowd. No desperate scramble, no bumping beaks, no fights. Catch the kibble and it's yours.

He wanted to try.

Zephram made a genuine effort. It was a delight to watch. A couple times he very nearly caught the kibble I tossed to him. But it's hard to learn a new trick when you're surrounded by a bunch of greedy bastards like yourself. Eventually he gave up.

The next day I went to visit Zephram on his turf, excited at the prospect of continuing our kibble-catching trainings. Could it be that after all these years our relationship had finally evolved into a friendship? Would we soon be having fun together? I greeted him and tossed a kibble right at his beak.

It fell to the ground. He looked at it, picked it up, ate it. I tried again. Toss! Perfect aim.

It bounced off his bill.

If I were to translate the look on Zephram's face into human words, they would be:

"What the fuck kind of rude ass behavior is this??!"

All right, all right. No games. Strictly business, Zephram.

Strictly business.

This is my entry for the #monomad challenge, held daily in the Black and White Community.
Give it a try. If it doesn't work out you can always go back to doing what you were doing before and forget it ever happened.

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_{A percentage of this post's rewards goes back to support the community.
All the stuff (pictures, words, etc.) I put in this post and any of my other posts is mine (unless otherwise stated) and can't be used by anyone else unless Zephram and I say it's ok.}