A sketch by Jean-Pierre Martinez
One – Are you all right?
Two – Yes… why do you ask?
One – I don’t know. Sometimes I get the feeling that something isn’t quite right.
Two – No, no, everything’s fine…
One – They say all crows look alike, but I don’t know… you’ve always seemed different to me.
Two – Oh yes…?
One – I don’t know… something in the way you caw. Even in the way you fly…
Two – You think so…?
One – Am I wrong?
Two – No.
One – Then what is it? What’s your secret, Babac?
Two – You won’t tell anyone?
One – I swear.
Two – I’d barely hatched when I was adopted by humans.
One – Really?
Two – I never knew my parents. From what I later understood, the tree our nest was in had been cut down by a woodcutter. My parents fled, and I fell at the foot of the tree. It was the woodcutter who took me home.
One – That’s incredible… And then?
Two – They fed me by spoon. I slept safely inside the house.
One – Did they put you in a cage?
Two – No, I was completely free.
One – You could have flown away.
Two – They were all very kind to me. And besides, where would I have gone? I didn’t know any other crows. I didn’t even know I was a crow.
One – You didn’t know you were a crow?
Two – I’d never seen other birds. I didn’t even know I could fly.
One – You didn’t…?
Two – To get around the house and the garden, I just hopped about. I didn’t need to fly. I didn’t even know what it meant. My humans didn’t fly either…
One – And then?
Two – I lived like that for a few years. I was quite happy.
One – And after that?
Two – One day I hopped a little higher than usual to get onto a table, flapping my wings at the same time. And I realised I could fly. At first it was just to reach a wall. Then a tree. And little by little I began to fly like a real crow.
One – So you left?
Two – Not straight away. I was happy with them. And I didn’t know where to go. Sometimes I’d leave for a few hours, but I always came back. Then I started leaving for several days…
One – And then?
Two – I met other crows and realised that my place wasn’t with humans.
One – That can’t have been easy…
Two – No. I had to learn everything. To learn how to feed myself, for a start. And then unlearn everything I’d learnt in my foster family. Because I soon realised that for other humans, I was just a crow like any other. That I couldn’t expect anything from them, and that I risked being shot if I got too close.
One – I knew you weren’t like the others…
Two – Yes…
One – And you never missed your foster family?
Two – I did. Sometimes I still think of them. But I had to leave them to live my life as a crow. I think, deep down, they understood that very well. And I thank them for never having put me in a cage.
One – And your real parents…?
Two – I never saw them again. Years later I went back to the place where my tree had been cut down by the woodcutter. It was no longer a wood, it was a wheat field. That day there were lots of crows in the sky. And down below there was a man painting a picture.
One – A picture?
Two – A painter…
One – Oh yes, I’ve seen one of those before… And what was he painting?
Two – The field… with the crows.
One – Then maybe you’re in the painting…
Two – Maybe.
One – Hang on a moment… Do you see that toad over there?
Two – Yes. There are actually two of them.
One – You wouldn’t happen to be a bit peckish…?
Blackout.
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A sketch from the collection Of Animals and Men
Link to the collection for free download (PDF)
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https://jeanpierremartinez.net