Tucking in the last corner of her white duvet, Ania did a quality check on all four points of the mattress. Folds in the fabric made lines so sharp they could cut through every balled-up piece of paper that lay stagnant in the wastebasket. She turned her back to the neatly made bed and headed her towards the elm wood desk. Her long caramel curls swiped against its surface as she yanked on the lamp’s pull chain and simultaneously sat on her faux suede chair. 

A deep exhalation blew the dust particles away from her thinly pursed lips. She turned her notepad to a fresh page, and her mind went blank. Just the sight of the empty paper robbed her of any ideas she had dreamt of the previous night. All she could do was write what she knew, so she dated the page 1940.02.20.

Her lagoon-like eyes migrated up towards the window. A small part of her hoped that her ideas would be written within the clouds. Disappointingly, there was nothing. Nothing but a bare tree. Ania accepted her defeat and was ready to challenge the empty notepad once again, but a flash of black kept her focus keened on the rustic sash window. It spun and spun, like debris caught up in a twister, until it finally landed on the thinnest of tree branches. It was a crow. 

For whatever reason, a magnificent creature had come to visit a below-average poet. Its pure white eyes pierced right through Ania, and it gave her an idea. She hurriedly scribbled down every word she could think of to describe her grandmother’s eyes. Her brain was moving too fast for her frail left hand—her fingers barely bigger than the pencil they held. 

Her scribed chaos was interrupted by a booming voice. It was her father shouting goodbye for the day. She turned to yell in response but barely had a word out before she could hear the front door shut. Her voice trailed off and she turned back to her notepad, a long lead line ran off the edge of the page. She threw her head in her hands out of frustration; she knew she had more to say, but the ideas left with her father. Looking back up to the tree for reassurance from the bird, she was met with an empty branch, quivering in the wind. Everything that left her—her memory, her soldier father, the crow—had no guarantee of return. 

At least the page was no longer empty; it now housed a scribbled mess that was a description of her grandmother’s eyes, in German. The chair screeched against the floor as she scooted back to access the pile of books beneath the desk. Grabbing the largest of the collection, Ania required both hands to bring the book up to the wooden surface. It was her dictionary—translations from German to Polish. 

Having made the move to Lodz just over a month ago, Ania was pleased with her new life. The new estate was double the size of her home back in the countryside of southern Germany. The upgrade allowed Ania to forgive her father’s choice of work, for it is to blame for the constant uprooting of her family. She also enjoyed being close to her maternal lineage, which included being near her grandmother’s resting place. Ania was planning to write this poem and leave it graveside for her Oma. The process of translating her work was a daunting task, but Ania thought it was a beautiful gesture—being spoken to after death in your native tongue. 

She set the book on her desk, dust flying as pages flipped. Slowly, blaugrün (blue-green) became turkus (turquoise), and großartig (beautiful) became piękny (beautiful). Word by word, Ania translated her jumbled mess of a poem. From start to finish, her neck had gone from wet malleable clay to bone dry and fragile.

After concluding the translations, her gaze became lost in what was past the smudge-ridden window panes: the bare tree. Its thinness and gray color reminded Ania of her hands. The burls overtaking its trunk resembled the bony knuckles sticking off her fragile fingers. Her skin was ghostly fair—it was not gray but it was close enough for her. The only discrepancy is that the tree could not do what her hands did. The tree could not hold a pencil, the tree could not write poetry, the tree could not flip the pages of the dictionary that now resided in her skirt-lined lap. The tree could not think, but neither could Ania at this moment, so they had that in common.

She directed her focus back to her notepad, and turned to a fresh yellow canvas. In her most pristine cursive, Ania copied her translations..

Drogi Oma, (Dear Oma,)

Tęsknię za tobą. (I miss you.)

Tęsknię za twoimi oczy. (I miss your eyes.)

Turkus i piękny. (Turquoise and beautiful.)

The pressure of perfect handwriting was interrupted when the lead tip snapped like a twig beneath a boot. The sound was distinct, but nothing compared to the cawing that came from outside her window. Ania’s focus darted up towards the source: a large black bird, feathers puffed up with pride. She shook her head, as to tell the crow she was not talking about it. For the crow was not beautiful, poised, and articulate like her Oma was. It was just a bird. A bird on a branch. Ania picked up a new pencil from the mug on her desk, and continued to write.

Trzy mrugnięcia, (Three blinks,)

Nasz sposób powiedzieć (Our way to say)

„kocham cię.” (“I love you.”)

Another caw came from the other side of this glass portal. Ania furrowed her perfectly plucked brows for a moment, but dismissed the thought. She put her head back down, pencil in hand, but the cawing came again. Ania’s focus darted up towards the bird, and it shut its eyes for a brief moment. Then it shut them again, and again. Three dimmings of the glowing orbs attached to the bird’s face, three blinks. Trzy mrugnięcia, dziwny. (Three blinks, strange.) Shaking away the thought, Ania placed the pencil back into its ceramic home, and put the notepad to sleep.

Having kept herself busy with other miscellaneous tasks, she was unaware that the day slipped through her fingertips. The distinct scraping of the front door against its frame told Ania it was time to welcome her father home from work. Three caws rang in response to the horrid noise. Ania glared out the window at the strange bird for that was the first time she heard it caw multiple times consecutively. She thought about what a strange thing this bird was, and how she was stupid to think the bird actually had a sense of comprehension. 

Scurrying down the steps, hands at her sides to hold down her skirt, but her curls bounced freely. Ania planted a kiss on the side of her father’s cheek. Her mother placed her hand on his sleeve to catch his jacket as he slid his arms out. She hung it in the coat closet as Ania and her father debriefed, but before the door shut, Ania’s father cleared his throat. Bowing her head in obedience, his wife swiftly removed and rehung the uniform, ensuring the scarlet band faced outwards. Three faint caws could be heard as her mother’s hand brushed over the sleeve one last time. 

The frantic fluttering of feathers could be heard on the other side of the front door—a door only thick enough to stop the bitter wind of winter—but even then the noise was too loud. Ania opened the door hesitantly, only to be met with a twister of birds. Crows, everywhere, flying frantically as their caws cried out. Ania’s mother took a step outside. Wrony są inteligentne, zbyt inteligentne na to. (Crows are intelligent, too intelligent for this.)

Co? (What?) Ania rested her icy grip on her mother’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of her sweater beneath her fingertips. She was able to isolate the noises of the different birds. With each one she focused on, she only heard three caws, never more nor less. Her focus was broken as her wrist fell as Ania’s mother swiftly ran towards the back of the house. Ania and her father interlocked their puzzled looks, but moved on with their evening.

Her mother was quiet at supper, and didn’t lead the family in saying grace. Knowing how strange this behavior was, Ania’s father interrogated his wife but it only led to her leaving the table, food untouched. Her husband made an attempt to follow her, but opted to accompany his daughter for the meal. Shortly after finishing, he was called into work for an emergent situation. Ania didn’t really understand what it meant, but she was glad her parents would have time to cool off after a heated evening.

That night Ania couldn't sleep, not with the razored moonlight shining through her blinds. Taking it as a sign, she decided she would try to talk to her mother herself. Ania wasn’t confrontational, so she was hoping she could communicate with her mother better than her father ever could.

Sitting on the edge of the linen comforter, Ania listened as her mother told stories of Oma. Her silly quirks, her favorite pastimes, her wild beliefs. Oma’s beliefs really stuck for Ania’s mother, specifically the story of the black birds. Ania’s mother recalled her favorite bedtime story—a crow sent to warn a little girl of a storm, one that would destroy her home. In the story the girl buried her sentimental stuffed rabbit in the yard, to protect it from the storm. Ania’s mother didn’t know how the story ended, as a girl she would fall asleep to the simple sound of Oma’s voice. She freaked out over the birds because of a simple bedtime story. She believed they were warning her of a danger, but she eventually dismissed the thought.

Ania didn’t dismiss it though. The three blinks of the original crow and the cawing, Ania believed that this was a warning from Oma. The silly black bird was using three blinks to tell Ania who the message was coming from, and cawed three times whenever someone interacted with her father. The crow was signifying danger regarding Ania’s father, her father who had left for an “emergent situation” at work. 

The theory came crumbling down as the scraping door frame awoke Ania from her slumber. Her father had returned home safely, so there was nothing for her to worry about. She flew down the stairs, jumping into his arms and hugging him tightly. As she slowly loosened her grip, three caws rang out as Ania’s hand slid over the scarlet arm band of the German uniform. That stupid bird, her father was in no danger after all.