Bunny Food: The Raven That Stole My Screw

The Raven That Stole My Screw

I've reached a point in life where I've accepted two things for certain.

First, tea tastes better after you've accidentally let it go cold chasing a Bunny Hole. Not because cold tea is somehow superior, No... don't be ridiculous 😂 but because if my tea's gone cold it usually means I found something I find worth learning. Second...

Birds cannot be trusted. Obviously...

Now before the ornithologists sharpen their pencils and draft strongly worded emails or @ me on Twitter, let me explain real quick.

You see...I don't hate birds. Actually, I love birds.

They're brilliant little feathered dinosaurs that somehow survived an extinction event just to spend the next sixty-six million years making my life unnecessarily interesting. I admire them. I respect them. I simply don't trust the bastards and, sweeties, I don't think they trust me either.

For reasons I still can't explain, birds have developed what feels like a deeply personal interest in my existence. Not people in general. Me. A seagull once stole a blintz straight out of my hand in Brighton Beach with the confidence of a career criminal. No hesitation. No shame. One second I had lunch, the next I had emotional damage.

A pigeon somehow managed to fly directly into my forehead while I was the only human standing in an otherwise empty car park. I refuse to believe that was an accident. Birds have the entire bloody sky. Explain to me how the only thing it could find was my head.

Then there was the watch...

We'll save the watch for another Bunny Food because if I start telling that story now we'll never make it back to today's feathered menace. Just know it involved an apple tree, one suspiciously smug magpie, and me questioning whether I was accidentally living inside a low-budget Disney film made by Temu...

See? Bunny Hole. Bro... It happens. Anyway...

Today's story is allegedly about a screw but reality, as usual, had other plans. I hate that...

A few autumns ago I finally decided to fix the side garden gate. Now, if you've ever owned your own house, you already know "finally" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. The gate had technically needed fixing since the previous winter. It wasn't broken. It was... leaning. My OCD really hates CROOKED...

It leaned... mot enough to stop working but just enough to quietly offend me every single morning. It reminded me of one of my дедушка's mates after New Year's celebrations. Still standing. Mostly. Gravity simply hadn't noticed yet. Drunk on vodka...

Every time I walked past I'd think, "I should sort that."Then I'd always notice something else. A history documentary. An article about Bronze Age trade routes. Some obscure Akkadian inscription.Why Roman concrete is still showing off two thousand years later.

You know... Important things. 😂😂😂

The gate patiently waited another six months. On this particular morning, though, I'd had enough. The kettle sang it's glourous scream. Tea was poured.

The weather was perfect. Proper autumn. Crisp enough that you wanted a jumper but not so cold your fingers hated you. The maple tree had finally given up pretending it was still summer, dropping leaves across the garden like someone had shaken out an old family quilt stitched in amber, crimson, and gold.

Somewhere down the road a dog was shouting very confidently about something only dogs seem to understand. I speak several languages. Many in fact... Dog isn't one of them.

Someone else was mowing their lawn.

Americans have a fascinating relationship with grass. Honestly, it's like an unspoken Saturday religion. Every weekend like Hank Hill from TV the neighbourhood collectively decides to attack perfectly innocent lawns with machinery loud enough to wake the dead. Then someone blows the clippings back onto the neighbour's driveway, who naturally blows them back again. I don't know who's winning this war, but it definitely isn't the grass.

Tea in one hand, toolbox in the other, I walked over to the gate feeling strangely optimistic. I'd even told a mate online, "Twenty-minute job." and let's be honest... If you've ever fixed anything around the house, you already know that's one of humanity's greatest collective lies.

It's right up there with, "I'll just check one email." Or, "I'm only popping into the shop for one thing."

Or my personal favourite... "I'll go to bed early tonight." (Me? Sleep? 😂😂😂) My brain doesn't work like that.

I tighten one screw. Then I notice the hinge... Which then reminds me about the fence. Which reminds me about the flower bed. Which somehow ends with me reorganising half the garage because I found a box labelled "Miscellaneous" and suddenly need to know what past me considered miscellaneous because that words covers everything and nothing at the same time...

Gods... Autism is funny like that isn't it? Some people collect stamps. I apparently collect unfinished projects and completely unnecessary historical facts and I'm honestly okay with that.

Mostly. Allegedly... On Minecraft...

Anyway... Back to the gate.

I laid out my tools on an old sawhorse that's probably older than some of my Twitter followers... Hammer. Screwdriver. Spirit level. Tin full of random screws that every homeowner seems legally required to own. Seriously. I bet you that nobody probably knows where half of them came from. Nobody knows what they originally belonged to. Yet somehow throwing them away feels morally wrong ya know?...

Engineers understand. Grandfathers understand. Everyone else eventually learns I think...

I picked up one tiny brass screw and held it against the hinge.

Perfect!!!

"Well," I muttered into my tea, "this might actually be the easiest repair I've done all year."

...SHIT... Famous. Last. Words...

We've all been there... We have...

I balanced the screw on top of the sawhorse while I dug through my pink toolbox for the screwdriver. I knew exactly where I'd put the bloody thing, which naturally meant it wasn't there anymore. Obviously... 😂 Every toolbox in my opinion eventually becomes a tiny archaeological dig. You don't just find tools. You find mystery bolts, electrical tape that's somehow fused into one solid brick, three pencils that no longer write, at least one Allen key from a piece of IKEA furniture you sold during the Obama administration abd a piece of candy older than your time in America...

I swear tools migrate when nobody's looking. If socks have a portal to another dimension, screwdrivers have one too. I will die on that hill homie... 

Finally found the screwdriver... Straightened back up. Reached for the screw.

...

What... WTF?... "Huh."

Gone.

Now, my first thought wasn't "bird." Rather, it was, "You've finally done it, Bunny. You've reached the age where you put things down and immediately forget where you put them like Grandfather."

I looked under the toolbox. Nope. Checked my pockets. Nothing. Looked in my tea hand for reasons I still can't explain. Like maybe I drank it... Still no screw.

"Where the hell..."

Then I heard it.

"CAAAAAW."

Not a normal caw. This one had attitude. Like someone across the street shouting, "Oi, cunt!"

I slowly looked up. There he was. Perched on the fence like he paid my property taxes or something. Big bastard too. Glossy black feathers catching little flashes of blue in the morning sun, chest puffed out like he'd personally invented gravity. Ravens are stunning once you stop expecting them to look like crows. Up close they're less "black bird" and more "someone carved midnight into feathers."

And sticking out of his beak...My mf'ing screw.

I blinked. He blinked. We just looked at each other for a second.

Then I did what any perfectly rational adult would do.

"Blyat."

The raven tilted his head. Now, I know he didn't actually understand Russian. Probably. I hope... But part of me to this day swears there was something in that look that said, "Fair."

"You..."

I pointed dramatically because apparently that's how negotiations begin per my lessons growing up...

"...give that back."

Nothing. He just stood there. Watching me like I was crazy. Not scared. Not nervous. Judging me.

Birds have mastered judgement without saying a single word. If you've ever been stared at by a raven, you know exactly what I mean. It's less, "Who's this human?" and more, "Really? This is what evolution came up with?" It's like they look down on us. 

I took one cautious step forward. He took one tiny hop backwards. Still holding my screw.

"Oh no, sweetheart," I muttered. "We're not playing this game."

Another step. Another hop. Then...

He deliberately dropped the screw onto the fence rail.

I smiled.

"Aha."

Reached for it but the little bastard snatched it back up before my fingers got within six inches.

...

Mf'er... What a little shit. I'm not saying he laughed but it felt like it. I'm just saying the sound that came out of him immediately afterwards wasn't exactly respectful.

"Caw."

Oh, piss off ya cunt...

I sighed, took a sip of now-lukewarm tea, and looked at him again.

"Seriously?"

Another caw.

This one somehow sounded smug. Now here's where it gets weird. Well... weirder. 😂

Somewhere between staring at this oversized feathered thief and slowly accepting that I was apparently arguing with wildlife before breakfast, my brain decided to give him a voice. Not because I'd lost my mind. At least I don't think so. I hope not... My brain just does that sometimes. Objects have personalities. Places have personalities. Apparently my brain decided ravens do too.

In my head he sounded somewhere between an East End market trader, an old Russian uncle, and that one sergeant every military unit somehow has who's seen everything, fears nothing, and lives entirely on redbull, nicotine and sarcasm.

"Finders keepers."

"You stole it."

"I found it."

"It was in my hand."

"You abandoned it."

"I put it down for two bloody seconds."

He shrugged or at least he fluffed his wings in a way that felt very shrug-like from my point of view...

"Skill issue."

I actually laughed out loud. Gods it had been so long since I had a real laugh... Standing in the garden. Holding tea. Having an imaginary argument with a raven.

This is why I don't judge people anymore. Deep down I think everyone's one strange Tuesday away from becoming the local eccentric or crazy cat lady... About then Terry opened the back door.

"You alright?"

I looked over my shoulder.

"The bird stole my screw."

He looked at me.

Looked at the bird.

Looked back at me.

"...Again?"

Now technically it wasn't "again."

This was the first screw. However, he'd already witnessed enough bird-related nonsense in our life together not to question the premise. He would only question the frequency.

"I think he's mocking me."

Terry squinted toward the fence. The raven stared right back. Neither moved. It felt oddly like two old blokes sizing each other up across a pub.

"Huh," he finally said.

"I know, right?"

"No..."

He pointed.

"I think he's waiting for you."

That sentence should've sounded ridiculous.

Instead... Deep inside me it felt correct. Mostly because it had now been at least an hour and  the raven wasn't flying away. He could've left whenever he wanted.

Instead he just... Stayed. Watching. Waiting. Almost like he was curious what I'd do next. That's the funny thing about curiosity. It's contagious.

Scientists have been discovering over the last few decades that ravens are far cleverer than we ever gave them credit for. They solve puzzles, remember human faces for years, recognise individual people, plan ahead, and even appear to understand when another raven has information they don't. Some experiments suggest they'll move food caches if they think another bird watched them hide it.

Read that again, sweeties. Not because they're hungry but because they understand another mind might know something they don't want it to know. I find that remarkable and honestly a little unsettling.

Which meant one of two things. Either this particular raven had accidentally wandered into my garden...

Or...

I'd just become part of whatever weird game he was playing that day... Knowing my luck with birds... Probably the second one.

I looked back at him. He looked back at me. Then very slowly...

Very deliberately... He tucked my screw a little deeper into his beak.

...

"Oh, we're doing this then."

"Caw."

"I don't know what that means."

"Caw."

"I choose to believe you just called me an idiot."

"Caw."

"Rude sauce lil homie."

He spread those enormous wings, gave me one last look that somehow managed to combine triumph, mischief, and what I can only describe as professional satisfaction...and then he launched into the air. For one glorious second the brass screw caught the sunlight like a tiny piece of treasure.

Then both bird and screw disappeared over the neighbour's roof.

Gone....

I stood there in complete silence. Took another sip of tea. It was cold now.

Of course it was.

"Well..."

I looked at the leaning gate. Looked at the empty fence. Looked toward wherever that feathered burglar had gone.

"...This is either the beginning of a beautiful friendship or I'm about to lose a lot more hardware."