'Crows' by Beret Olsen

The moment in question barely registered for Gus Lumley. As he hurtled and perspired through an anatomy of side streets, Gus was consumed by a swollen disdain for twelve- to fourteen-year-olds.

As a seventh grader, Darlene Wissler didn’t muster his sympathy, nor anyone else’s on the bus. She was that kid. Odd. Luckily, Darlene spent the better part of middle school in a world built out of scar tissue—a world she populated with encyclopedic trivia rather than the hormonal knuckleheads she currently swayed amongst.

Perched solo in the front seat, the world unfolded for her outside the windshield, not in.

It was only William Tucker who thought about this moment long after leaving Cloverton Middle School behind, after floundering through high school, and a brief stint in community college. He might be idling in traffic, or surveying the meager contents of his fridge. Perhaps sitting opposite his own unknowable progeny—wondering at the workings of a drifting mind. How might he, too, escape safely into his own thoughts?

At 3:56 p.m. that day, Darlene picked at a scab just below her elbow, cradling her left arm with her right as she did so.

William Tucker strutted up the center aisle; bellowed that it was Darlene’s third day in a row in the same lame dress.

But Darlene’s attention was suspended by crows, swooping and floating above a grisly roadside feast.

The vehicle lurched, tossing William Tucker across her lap. He yelped, scrambled to get up, to keep his audience. “Back off, bitch!” he ventured, unsure whether his schoolmates were laughing with him or at him. 

“I oughta call your ma, Tucker,” the Gus huffed. He paused long enough to twist his sweat-stained torso toward the ruckus, but his heart wasn’t in it. In fact, his heart was focused on the pork rinds endlessly, thoughtlessly munched, his arteries gasping and plotting to fail eleven years hence. Laughter dwindling and Darlene unperturbed, Gus shrugged and resumed his route, crows flapping angrily as the bus drew closer.

Annoyed by her lack of response, William snapped his fingers in Darlene’s face. “Hey! You hear me? Hands off. I’m not interested.” A few kids tittered, but most had already gone back to their gossip and devices.

Darlene cocked her head, finally making eye contact. “It’s called a murder,” she said.

William was mystified. “The hell you talkin’ about?”

“It’s a murder of crows,” she said.

And as they rolled toward apartments, toward sitters, baby brothers, and slamming screen doors, a few entrails stretched and squished beneath the wheels.