Crow stood on the mounds of earth, peering darkly into the shallow tunnels that furrowed the old cricket ground. "This is new, this is new". What kind of kingdom is this, he wondered to himself. And who could have done all this work in one single night?

Which animal has left its imprint here? Where do these long lines lead to? Crow was so full of questions this morning. Everything else was the same, the sun, the trees, the guards high up in the towers, with their sad, blue uniforms. His own friends would join him soon to ponder this great mystery, this irruption of the ludicrous into their ordered world.  

Crow looked at me, puzzled, as I ran past him on my third lap. "It was you, wasn't it?" he asked me inquisitively. There was no answer. But he did wonder, being formed by so many curves of the world, why human beings were so haunted by shallow graves.

Crow, formally ageless, understood for a moment what it was to be human, and something dark grew in his heart.