It was just another dreary commute home until an unusual sound stopped me in my tracks – a distressed cry coming from a rain-soaked bush. Pushing aside the branches, I discovered a crow in trouble, one wing clearly injured. She didn’t resist when I scooped her up, just stared at me with surprising calm.
For the next week, my apartment became a bird hospital. I fashioned a nest from towels, kept her warm with a heating pad, and fed her scraps of meat. Slowly, her wing healed enough for short test flights around the room, then later outside. Though she began spending days away, she always returned at dusk – until she didn’t.
After a week with no sign of her, I assumed our strange friendship had ended. Then one morning, I heard tapping at my window. There she was, something shiny clutched in her beak. She deposited an old keychain on the sill – one I recognized immediately as my father’s, lost around the time of his death last year.
Crows are known for collecting shiny objects, but this felt different. That tarnished keychain connected me to memories I thought were gone forever. Now when my black-feathered friend visits, she brings more than just trinkets – she brings comfort.
