Priyatam Mudivarti

Wrote this out of a fic­tion work­shop at Grub­street.

Kaki, The Indian crow

In my lan­guage, they call me Kaki. I have wings and I prey around ceme­ter­ies above dead fathers and moth­ers and old grand­par­ents buried deep in wood and figs. The peo­ple are scared of me when we fly in pairs, in the hun­dreds. It’s sun­day today and I see a new fam­ily weep­ing next to the wil­low tree. A boy, bare chested, holds an earthen pot on his head and rotates around the pyre. Next to him, the same priest I saw yes­ter­day recites mantras. He instructs the boy to spread a leaf and place the ball of rice in three cor­ners and the boy, after pray­ing, raises his head towards the sky. I swing my wings and hurl down the pyre and grab the rice on the banana leaf next to where he left and say hello, mother f… I am kaki, the crow of death — I am here to take your soul.