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No Hunger for the Crows

A young, oriental boy sits cross- legged on the charred, war torn ground and casually picks at the dried, dirty scabs that cover the bottoms of his shoeless feet. His lips resemble dried out meat and look scabby as well as his barely damp tongue whips across their crusted surface in a desperate attempt to wet them.

Smoke fills the air of the small village as survivors walk past him casting brief shadows and a quick pleasurable break from the scorching sun, the only help they give him. The sounds of moaning, screaming and crying surrounds the little boy as he effortlessly tunes out the songs of misery and casually rolls his neck and sits back a little, giving his scabs a break. The leanness of his stretched out body resembles more of sun -baked bones than that of a normal, flesh covered little boy as he looks out and takes in the misery with his emotionless and robotic eyes.

The dead bodies that cover the grassless earth seem to be nothing more than annoying to his view and to the people walking by as they struggle to move around all of them, giving the lifeless bodies the same attention as a wadded up and twisted piece of trash on the ground. The young boy looks upon the cool early morning hell and seems to prefer to observe the agony rather than joining in it.

His eyes skip over the remains of life as he chooses to focus on the living instead, even though some hang by a thread. He sees a man holding his little girl’s lifeless body. The father sits right amongst all the misery and embraces his loss, his own personal hell the only thing powerful enough to distract him from that which surrounds him. The boy looks at the man but fails to hand out even a single remorseful thought. He can’t help but notice how dead children look like nothing more than soulless dolls in the hands of agonizing parents.

He grows bored with the father’s bellyaching and then turns his attention to an older man as he kneels down to feast on a small, maggoty bowl of rice. People stop as they pass by, not to look at him but to admire his snack. He gazes at them with the look of a demon, a warning that he would happily fight to the death for this rice because the rice is his life. He shoes away and lunges fast at all whose hands desperately reach for even a single grain, including young children begging and crying. Their pleas do nothing as his mercy had long since been starved away. The boy admires the man; he admires his ability to survive and how he doesn’t allow pity or remorse to kill him.

He smiles knowing that the most dangerous creatures often come in small form. The many parentless children circle the village like packs of dogs carrying with them their own survival tool, pity. They often prey on a parent that has just lost a child who will gladly hand over every grain of rice they have, just to hug them and stroke their hair and close there eyes and pretend they were their own. And the many children bleed from them every drop of water and every crumb until their temporary parents are gone, drained and taken. So they move on.

The young boy sitting doesn’t move in packs anymore, for he’s at that age where he’s still a child but his tears and cries no longer carry with it the same pitiful sounds that can often make the starving hand over their life. So instead he survives through calculation and thought and not making mistakes.

As he scans the camp for more thought provoking entertainment he comes across something that piques his interest. It’s a child whose life, at most, could have seen two, maybe three summers. He doesn’t cry or scream or yell, but instead just sits amongst the misery. The young boy observing had watched many children cry for days, leaning over their dead parents before moving on but this child looked like he hadn’t moved in weeks, his face smoke colored and his lips once again baked dry.

There were no bodies in the area, no sign of a loved one. The child sits up but wobbles back and forth, the dehydration apparently just hours away from taking another life. The crows, the dark-as-sin, large, carnivorous birds all stand several feet from the child in packs of twenty or thirty. Their dark feathers are healthy and as shiny as black oil and they position themselves with experience, ready to feast on the toddler the moment he goes down. The selfish, fat and over nourished crows gluttonously wobble like penguins, still full from their last meal and instead of being content, they circle the helpless child eager for the taste of freshness and the easy-to-chew human veal meat that cooks in the sun before their beady, soulless eyes.

The young boy looks upon the child who’s soon to be calories for the cold creatures of nature, and something stirs in him. Even though his pity for anything, including the boy, is absent; the fire inside him, his anger and his jealously are still healthy. His hatred for the crows, it grows inside him. The cowardly meat eaters just walk up on a prepared meal that life just provided for them with no effort, nothing needed but patience.

The young boy looks to the side and sees a bunch of crows feeding on the meat of another dying. The fresh blood covers the still dried and caked up blood on their beaks and face, soon to be just another layer showing evidence of their numerous feasts. One of the crows stops eating only to drag a piece of meat a few feet away; too full to consume it but too selfish to give it to anything else. The carnivorous bird then sees the others circling the child. It drops the meat and gathers with the others, waiting for dessert. The young boy grits his teeth. Watching all the happy, fat birds makes his grumbling stomach ache more as he grabs two bloody pieces of cloth and wraps them around his scabby feet. He stands up and grabs a small bag and walks over to the child.

“Taeyang-ui naga!!!!” the young boy says to the child in his native Korean dialect to get out of the sun.

“Taeyang-ui naga!! The young boy says again as the child just looks up at him, his eyes absent and empty.

The young boy grabs his bag, opens it and discreetly pulls out a canteen. This gets the child attention as the boy opens the lid and pores just a small bit of water in his dirty hand, which he has shaped like a cup. He sips it as the child watches in envy making his tongue drag across his crusted lips as he gulps. He reaches out, asking for some and the boy nods his head to get the child to follow him. The child does.

They both cuddle up in a dark, tented area, as a small campfire in the distance seems to the only light. The child guzzles the water in the canteen. The young boy aggressively jerks it out of the child’s hand. The child begins crying but the boy coldly puts the lid back on and puts it in the bag. He pulls out a dinted can of meat with a white label, covered in Korean. The child stops crying and looks at him with interest as the boy pulls a rusty knife and begins cut the lid off. When it opens, the smell of un-rotting meat fills the child nose and he becomes excited as he lunges for it.

The boy jerks back, “Jamkkan man-yo,” he yells in a loud whisper telling him to wait.

The boy does as he gets the lid off and exposes the food. The young boy scoops a handful out and gives it to the child who hungrily takes it down. The boy takes a couple of big scoops down himself and then gives the rest to the child who eats every last drop of food in the can until the metal is polished. As they sleep the little child crawls up next to the boy. The boy jerks back a little and looks at him strangely. The child just stares as if he’s demanding. The young boy then just leans back and allows the child to lie next to him.

******

The two boys chase each other through a small, busy village, down and outside to some wheat field. The older boy, who looks even older now, gives the child, who has now grown unrecognizable, his bag over and takes his ball cap off his head setting it on the child’s. He then heads into the fields, grubbing for edible vegetation.

“Ani, geuleol sun eobs-eoyo!!!” the child pleads, saying he’s not supposed to go there.

The boy looks back “Dangsin-eun gyuchig-eul ttala jueoss-eumyeonhajiman dangsin-i yag-eul deo meoggo” he says with a smile explaining that he likes to follow the rules but enjoys eating more.

The child watches the young boy go into a large vegetable field. He moves fast, in and out searching for anything edible. He digs through the dirt like a ground hog and smiles widely as he strikes gold, pulling out two big, fat yams. He searches the trees for any ripe, unpicked vegetables on his way out but sees nothing. Everything else has been taken. He looks on at the child and waves the two large potatoes at him. The child smiles back at him with an admiration, but as he starts walking out an old oriental farmer with his leathered, sun baked skin runs up to the boy screaming. “Geumanhae! umjig-i jima ... umjig-i jima!!!” the farmer shouts telling him not to move. The boy, worrying of severe punishment begins to run as the farmer begs him to stop.

“Seodulleo yun !.... seodulleo!!!” the child screams telling his friend to move faster.

The boy runs and runs and then steps on something that makes him freeze. The ground clicks as he stops, looks down and then looks up at the child and gasps. Then instantly the clay more mine ignites and the boy is disintegrated, his body now a red, cloudy mist. The child, wearing the oversized cap screams in horror.

******

An oriental man sits up from his bed and gasps for air. His body is drenched in fright and his chest rises rapidly. He looks around searching for familiarity and sees his wife still waded up in covers, sleeping soundly. He wipes the sweat from his brow and then lies back in his bathed sheets. He leans over and kisses his wife and crawls out of bed.

He walks into a dark kitchen wearing a pair of pajama pants and opens up a large, double door refrigerator. As he opens it, the light illuminates the kitchen as he leans over and runs his fingers along the overstocked ice box. Every drawer and cabinet is jam packed with meat, diary, eggs, veggies and fruit. He grabs a big bottle of water and guzzles it down. He stops and leans against the fridge, the light reflecting off his still sweaty body shows an old man as he takes a breath from his gigantic gulp and leans his head back as if the water was a drug. He brings the bottle up to his lips for more but then stops. He puts the cap on and then carefully puts it back in the fridge and closes it.

He walks out and into a small carless garage and walks along a wall. An avid hunter, hundreds of stuffed and winged creatures decorate his walls, however they are not displayed proudly but hatefully, showing an anger towards nature.

He moves along a sidewall where three more refrigerators are lined up side by side. He opens each fridge, one by one and inspects the full-to-capacity units with a careful eye. He then walks across to the other side of the garage where 2 massive commercial deep freezes sit side by side. He opens the lid on one, brushing away some of the fog to increase his visibility and feels the pounds and pounds of block frozen meat that is once again collected to its limit.

He shuts it and walks over, dragging a ladder under a large attic entrance. He climbs up it and pulls down an ancient green duffel bag. He sits down on the floor, opens it up and dumps out the contents causing several containers of old, dented canned food and a beat up, military canteen to hit the hard garage floor, along with an old waded up baseball cap. He slowly picks up one of the cans and looks at the old peeling sticker labeled in Korean and sighs. He then picks up the canteen, pulls the cap off and smells the musky metallic scent. His hands begin to shake as he then picks up the duffel and hold it up to his nose, smelling it. He exhales loudly as his eyes saturate with tears. He takes another breath and starts to cry heavily as he brings his vibrating hands up and buries his face in them. He sits down on the floor and wails like a hurt child. He curls up in pain surrounded by his stockpiles of food and continues to smell his old duffel bag, allowing the memory to rape his senses and the agony to consume him. He forcibly bathes in his horror fearing that he will someday forget something that in reality, he never could.

He brings the duffel bag from his face for a moment and tries to wipe the tears from his eyes but misses a few as they roll in his mouth.

With a quiet respect and grateful whisper, he says,

“Naneun geudeul-i chugjeleul bomyeonseo gulm-eo kkamagwi jangso-eseo, dangsin-ege pyeonghwaga nae chinguui yeong-won-eul giwonhabnida.” - - -“I wish you an eternity of peace, my friend, in a heavenly place where the crows starve as they watch you feast.

The End

* To Mr. Pius Yoon, a friend, teacher and Korean War survivor. Rest in peace 1931-1991.