Chapter 3: The man that walks with crows
1511 Words
Some men break like glass—loud, dramatic, begging to be swept up.
Others melt—slow, obedient, pouring themselves into the molds I’ve carved.
But then there’s Phillip.
He didn’t arrive with a tantrum or tribute. He arrived in silence.
Desert silence.
The kind that hums in the bones of the earth and doesn’t care if you’re listening.
The first time I answered his call, he didn’t ask what I was wearing.
He asked me to cast a spell on him.
I blinked. Smiled. Tilted my head like I was deciding whether to pet him or kill him.
Put a spell on you? Sure, baby. I’m always casting.
He sends money daily. Not much—five dollars, maybe ten.
Not a whale. Not a simp. Not a plaything for my amusement.
But at month’s end, it stacks. A steady drip. A quiet tithe.
Like he’s feeding a deity in secret.
He lives in the desert. Wanders it, really.
A retired janitor under the same sun that once kissed kings and killed fools.
And the crows—God, the crows.
He says they follow him. He feeds them. They talk. They know he’s good.
Maybe they do.
Maybe they see what I don’t.
With Phillip, I don’t unsheathe the knives.
I give him soft tasks. Small offerings.
Sweep the porch. Pick up a feather. Watch the sky until it winks at you.
He always says yes, Goddess. And later: I did it.
I never ask where he goes. Or why he called me that first day.
Maybe I already know.
I was half-dressed, brushing honey-oil into my hair when my phone buzzed.
Phillip. Right on time. The sun hadn’t even risen.
I let it ring once. Twice. Then answered—slow, calm. Timeless.
“Hello, darling,” I purred, letting the words drip like warm resin.
Static. Wind. The sound of a call placed from nowhere.
“Goddess,” he said softly. “The moon was orange last night.”
That was how he always started. No small talk. No filth. Just weather reports from the spirit realm.
I sank into my chair, closed my eyes.
“Did it speak to you?” I asked.
A pause. “No. But the crows were louder. They brought me something. A little bone. Maybe a finger.”
I didn’t laugh. He wasn’t joking.
“Did you keep it?”
“No, Goddess. I left it by the rock where I put water. It didn’t feel like mine to carry.”
Smart man.
“What did you bring me today?” My voice low, smoked in velvet.
“Ten dollars,” he said. “I already sent it.”
Every day. Without prompting. Without begging.
Just: Here. Take it. I don’t want to be free.
“Good boy,” I whispered.
“I cleaned the place,” he added. “Used the old broom. Wooden handle.”
Of course he did.
Two days ago, I’d said: Find a sacred place. Sweep it like it’s the last corner of the world.
He obeyed like it was law.
“I could hear the sand breathing,” he said.
“She always does,” I told him. “If you know how to listen.”
Phillip isn’t mine like the others are.
He doesn’t want pain. Doesn’t chase the sting.
He belongs to something older. Wilder.
Maybe I’m just the voice tethering him to the realm of the living.
Or maybe I’m the one who answers when the desert prays.
That night, I thought about him again.
Phillip. The man with ghost-smooth hands and crow-feather dreams.
Not my most lucrative caller. But I looked for his name more than I should.
Not that he knew.
None of them know.
They’re not supposed to.
I lit a black candle. Not for him.
But not not for him.
The room filled with frankincense and desert wood.
I whispered his name once. Just once.
No spell. No command.
Just: Phillip.
And something in the walls listened.
⸻
The next morning: no call. No buzz. No static. No Phillip.
I told myself I didn’t care. I was busy. There were other men to ruin.
But when I checked my balance, there was nothing.
No offering. No tithe. Just… silence.
I moved through the day, dragging his absence like a loose thread through velvet.
I didn’t speak his name. Didn’t light a candle. Didn’t chant.
But I stared out the window longer than I should’ve.
And when a crow landed on the wire outside, something cold cinched tight around my ribs.
He’d never missed a day.
By evening, the stillness felt intentional. Like the desert was holding its breath.
I thought of the bone. The orange moon.
Then—just past midnight—my phone buzzed.
Phillip.
I answered without thinking. My voice sharper than usual.
“Where were you?”
Static. Then breath.
“I had to walk farther today,” he said. “The wind scattered everything. I couldn’t find the place you told me to clean.”
He sounded… worn. Like the earth had tried to keep him.
I said nothing. He went on.
“I found it eventually. The broom was gone. But the crows waited.”
Of course they did.
“I left them water. I left you twenty today, not ten.”
I sat down slowly. My body remembered its power before my mind did.
“I’ll take it,” I murmured.
“I know,” he said.
And then he hung up first.He wasn’t calling to play. He wasn’t performing. He wasn’t like the others—those soft men, hungry for domination, humiliation, whatever small fire I could light under their bellies.
Phillip wasn’t trying to be seen.
He was trying not to vanish.
He calls because he needs a witness.
Someone to say: Yes. He was here. He walked the sand. He left offerings. He swept the desert clean with reverence and blistered hands.
The crows see him—but they speak in riddles.
The wind remembers no names.
The sun burns everything down to bone.
But I remember. I answer.
He doesn’t want love. Or release. Or power.
He just wants someone to mark the fact of him. That he was here. That he mattered.
So he calls.
Ten dollars at a time. A breadcrumb trail across the dunes.
And I follow it, without knowing why.
Maybe I’m not his goddess.
Maybe I’m just his anchor.
maybe that’s enough to keep him tethered to the edge of this world.
He doesn’t ask for anything real—not like the others.
He doesn’t beg for release. He doesn’t ache to be broken.
He just… follows instructions. Wanders from camp to camp in that rust-bitten van.
Sweeps circles in the sand. Leaves water for crows. Whispers to the wind.
And every time he sends a few dollars, it’s not tribute. It’s a timestamp.
A heartbeat.
Proof of life.
And here’s the worst part:
I think I’m starting to fear what happens if he stops calling.
Not because I care. Not really.
But because if no one remembers him—if I stop answering—
the desert might finish swallowing him, and no one will even know he was ever here.
He’ll disappear like smoke over hot stone.
And what does that make me?
The last thread holding a nameless ghost in a van together by voice alone?
Or something worse?
Maybe I’m not a goddess. Maybe I’m just the ledger. The receipt. The record keeper.
Maybe I’m the only line in the book that says: Phillip lived.
And maybe that’s the real spell.
It gnawed at me for days after.
Why me?
Out of every number in the void, every voice he could’ve dialed, every soft-mouthed oracle whispering nonsense into the ether—why me?
I used to tell myself it was chance.
That he just stumbled across me the way you stumble across a coin buried in the dirt.
Shiny enough to keep.
Heavy enough to matter.
But now I’m not so sure.
Because he doesn’t talk like someone who wandered into this by accident.
He talks like someone who recognized something.
Like he saw a light in the distance and knew exactly which direction to walk.
And I—I said yes.
Without even asking what he was.
Maybe he heard something in my voice.
Maybe he smelled it, like the crows do—salt and blood and half-spoken names.
Or maybe he wasn’t looking for a woman at all.
Maybe he was looking for a mirror.
Something to reflect the shape of the thing inside him.
A shadow in heels. A mouth that tells the truth sideways.
A presence that doesn’t ask him to explain how the sand breathes or why the bone felt sacred.
Someone who wouldn’t laugh when he said the crows were louder today.
Maybe that’s why.
Because I didn’t flinch.
Because I didn’t look away.
Because somewhere between the oil in my hair and the smoke in my voice, I said:
“Of course. I’ve been waiting.”
- Writer
