A story in Eleven Parts

I. A foetus, no bigger than a fingernail, was growing inside her womb. Kadru knew this, vomiting the insides of her stomach, hunched over the white porcelain sink. She pushed her hair back and peeked into the grimy mirror. I hope It's not a girl, she thought, staring back at herself.

II. The doctor peered over his spectacles at Kadru, fixing her with a cold, disapproving glance. What you ask of me is wrong, he meant to say. But he didn't. She slid the money across the table. He tucked it away into his shirt pocket.
He spoke, breaking the heavy silence that hung between them. "It's a girl."
Kadru went home. She closed the doors and windows, pushing out every last bit of light. She lay on the bed, sweating in the stuffy darkness, as her heart and mind fought. What to do? She fanned herself with the edge of her pallu. The air was heavy, fetid. She counted the minutes till her husband would arrive from the office. What to do, what should she do, what did she want to do?

III. Kadru closed her eyes and pressed her fingernails into her palms. She gritted her teeth. Blood poured out between her thighs, and the foetus slipped out - tiny, no bigger than the palm of one's hand. The abortionist picked up the tiny scrap of flesh, a frail, delicate thing. Like an albino alien. She tossed it in the garbage dump outside.
But it wasn't dead. In the darkness, when dogs howled and cats shrieked, a tiny figure peered out of the shadows. It opened it's miniscule, blind eyes and stared at the night.

IV. Dawn broke, and light flooded the thing's eyes. It slouched back into the dark shadows, observing the street as it awoke. It watched the nieghbourhood dogs fights, the milkman go by on his cycle. The day pressed on, cars and trucks and scooters sped by. Housewives came out of their homes, still attired in their long, frilly night dresses, to harangue harassed vegetable sellers.
And as night dawned again, the foetus began to think. What am I? Who am I? What am I to do?
It tottered into the night, on its small feet. It passed a crow, pecking on the scraps of garbage thrown in the street.
The foetus asked, What am I?
The crow cawed and shrieked in revulsion. I don't know. But you look like a tiny man thing. A very tiny man thing, that hasn't been fully made. Like you shouldn't have been hatched yet. Sick. I haven't seen your kind before.
The foetus quavered. I'm a monster, the foetus thought. An abomination.
Minutes passed. The crow ruffled his feathers, shamefacedly. I'm sorry.
You are still here?
Yes, the crow cawed, tossing a half-empty packet of milk to the foetus. Drink.

V. In the years to come, strange stories crept through the neighbourhood. About a demon, a spirit, a tiny half-human thing, that could be spotted flying through the skies, astride a crow.

VI. I was a man once, the crow said. I think.
You were?
The crow ruffled his feathers. There is a house at the edge of a city. A dark house, with twisted mango trees in the front, blocking out the sunlight. Strange things hide in the shadows and dark corners of this house. Ghosts and spirits. A magician lives there. He is impossibly old. He turned me into a crow.
Why?
The crow was silent for a moment. I can remember the sound of children splashing, on a hot summer's day. I can remember the smell of perfume, of over-ripe bananas. But more than that I can not remember.
The foetus pondered this.
Could he make me, you think, what I was meant to be? A man-thing?

VII. There was house still, and crooked stumps that dotted the garden. But there was a big hole in the roof, and rubble, pieces of cement and plaster filled the house. The steps were worn, the windows broken. There were queer shadows, that seemed to move, even in the absence of light, but there was no man there. In the backyard, they found a pile of broken bones, shards of glass, and a human-sized skull, picked clean. Here the grass had been scorched, as if by fire, and nothing grew.
There's no one here, a squirrel told them. No one for years.

VIII. The foetus was left with a dream. And impossibly, it began to hope.
I want to be a man, it told the crow.
And the crow sighed.

IX. The foetus peered in through the window. A man sat, spectacles perched on the end of his nose, rifling through the pile of papers that cluttered his desk. The foetus carefully crawled through a crack in the window pane.
The man looked up. He heard the sound of a dull thud, as the foetus scrambled past the pane, and crawled onto the ledge.
The man heard a voice.
What are men before they are born?
The man looked around, amazed. But he saw nothing.
What makes a man?
The man turned his head. He failed to see the scrap of flesh on his window ledge, clinging to the curtains. The man knelt on the carpet, and bent his head.
He began to pray.

X. The foetus wept.
The crow pecked at a loose feather. Men see only what they want to see.
The foetus raised his face, his tear-stained unformed face, to the sun. We don't belong in their world.
And for the first time ever, it laughed.

XI . For many years after, in that town, there were stories, of an invisible angel that visited men and spoke with a human voice. Stories of food and books that went missing. Tales of black feathers found behind an altar, between the pages of a book. Of a half-man, half-bird that a child once saw on her windowsill at night. These were tales that men of science and reason scoffed at; but old women and children whispered to each other behind closed doors.
Stories of magic. Stories, that for some strange reason, gave hope.