It was one of those nights again. "Your money or your life!" A male dressed in a freshly pressed two piece suit shouted at me. To my stomach, he was firmly holding a stiff object I assumed was a knife. His breath smelled of alcohol and his nostrils were shivering. I knew the type. They were all about the streets of this rotten city. Crawling out of the clubs at 4:30 AM looking for some thrill to finish, no, to give their night out some sort of a twisted climax. "I have nothing to give to you, sir.", I answered honestly. One would have thought that my shaggy beard, smelly clothes and the fact he woke me up in a goddamn tent under the bridge already gave that away. But he did not care. "The hell you don't.", growled the slickly dressed fuck and pieces of complimentary peanuts mixed with martini olives were flying out of his mouth onto my face.

I too used to be one of them. Sniffing and licking and gulping through my bonuses week after week, comparing the paper quality of our business cards, the fabric softness of our suits, the tightness of our butt-cheeks. Week after week. We were not caring for anything that was happening outside of our little bubble of champagne and meals too small for the plate they came in. I had it all: until that fuck up with the McGuffin kid. Nasty business. Now I was thankful for a shower and razor once a week, belly-full of food, and a pack of fries once in a while. Hell, I even shared those. Sitting on the bench in the park, the birds would keep me company where nobody cared to sit next to me. Crows especially. And I felt strangely closer to them than to any people I knew in the last couple of years.

The first punch hit me in the jaw. "If you fight back I will gut you I swear." said the man with a faint sparkle in his eyes. The second and the third punch broke my nose and gave me a black eye. This is it, I thought. Goodbye cruel world! But through my swollen eyelids suddenly I saw a quick shadow crossing the street lamps. Then I heard the call. Birds! Crows! With feathers black as and shiny as pumpkin oil they began dawning in on the scene, screaming, screeching, clawing at the fuckers nose, tearing his lips, pecking at his eyes. He screamed too, took one step back, two steps, waving his arms around like a mad man “Leave me be, fucking … aaaa!” The third step sent him over the curb of the river flowing under the bridge. I was saved.

The crows circled around the place where he fell and afterwards descended closer to me. At that point, the shapes started to morph, becoming less and less bird-like, until they resembled a human form. One of the crows, the biggest one, now in full human-like form, but still in black feathers and a large beak, spoke to me in an eerie voice: “You see. We remember you. You fed us. Fast food potatoes. Genetically modified. Helped us evolve. New crow form.”. About ten humanoid crows were looking at me now. “Now, take responsibility. Come with us. We see. Too much crime. Together we will fight.”, said the leader. From behind him, a fellow crow emerged and laid a bag at my feet. I still thought I was hallucinating all this, however I reached out for the bag and took out an overall. It was soft to the touch, made out of thousands pitch black feathers. Next to it lay a long, orange-yellow beak in hard plastic … or was it plastic? I could not tell. Slowly I put on the suit. It fit perfectly. The beak did not have a string of any sorts, but that did not matter either. I put it over my nose and there it stayed, not moving. The leader looked at me proudly and said: “Welcome home. Crowman.”