Fragment: A Crow's Birthday Wishes

Time & Location: Autumn 2032 · Shores of Lake Kapchagay

 

 

My seventieth birthday.

 

At the Tengri Conrad Hotel on the shore of Lake Kapchagay.

Though it was the Spring Equinox, winter still ruled here. The wind outdoors cut like a knife.

 

Toward evening, I held a party with my crows.

There was no music.

No flowers.

Only an ordinary cream cake.

I had ordered it myself.

Nine dollars.

 

 

Squatting among them, I used KP-8 to converse with the flock.

I heard their birthday wishes:

“My lord, eat a little more cake."

"Lord, you'll live a long time."

"Hey, we're here with you.”

 

During the previous three years, I had deliberately never taught them certain human words:

• anger

• jealousy

• competition

• love

Nor words such as:

• tired

• miserable

• hardship

• happiness

Crows had no need for either poetry or complaint.

 

I lifted the white crow into my arms.

 

A small disturbance spread through the flock.

The black beads of their eyes moved in unison, following my fingers as I stroked its feathers.

 

The movement was so synchronized that it felt as though they were trying to amuse me.

 

This bird had once been pitiful.

Among two hundred crows, it was the only albino.

It was also the oldest, perhaps more than ten years old.

In cold northern regions, most crows never reach twenty.

Its feathers were not truly white.

The pale plumage carried traces of gray.

If it skipped a bath, the down became unruly and disheveled.

The other crows had shunned it.

Excluded it.

Mocked it.

 

A few days earlier, however, I had used the finest hair dye available and colored its entire body silver-white.

The other crows had nearly fallen out of the sky from shock.

 

I called it Little White.

It was somewhat slow-witted.

It had taken me months to teach it its own name.

Most crows learned theirs within weeks.

 

A black crow hopped closer.

That was Little White's girlfriend.

By now, Little White was probably the most intelligent crow in the flock.

Perhaps the most AI-enhanced crow on Earth.

 

It could recognize at least three thousand Chinese characters, along with Arabic numerals and English letters.

Its intelligence was roughly comparable to that of a sixth-grade student.

For a small number of frequently encountered words, it could even produce awkward but understandable vocal approximations.

 

Sometimes I carried it with me while wandering through the digital world.

I told it about the Acoustic Digital Archive I was building.

It cared far less about the archive itself than about the photographs on the website.

 

Very much like the younger version of me, who found real human bodies tiresome but became excited by Japanese erotic images.

Crows, too, possess dopamine, oxytocin, and adrenaline.

 

The day after my birthday party, I spotted a thief outside a Chinese supermarket.

Wrapped from head to toe in scarves and layers of clothing, the person was running with an armful of stolen goods.

 

We collided head-on.

I staggered.

As the thief instinctively reached out to steady me, I said:

"Kid, if you need something, I can buy it for you.
You don't have to steal.”

 

In the confusion, the scarf slipped from the face.

A beautiful Kazakh girl.

She shoved me aside and fled.

 

The supermarket guard helped me up.

With a sigh, he said:

"That girl was abandoned by a man.
She has a child and no income."

"Do you know her?"

"Of course.
She steals food once a month.
We don't stop her."

 

But crows hold grudges.

They remembered that she had knocked me to the ground.

And so they targeted her.

They harassed her constantly.

They dive-bombed her in public.

Defecated on her head.

Occasionally pecked at her face.

 

When I found out, I convened a meeting.

I scolded the crows harshly.

I could not really blame Little White for spreading the story.

It did not understand such human matters.

Still, I was annoyed.

For an entire week, I refused to acknowledge it.

Secretly, though, I observed.

Little White and its girlfriend seemed perfectly content.

 

I opened my email.

Messages waited there.

From Orchid.

From Sha Qingqing.

From Sha Dao.

From my daughter.

From Dawa Yangzong.

I did not reply.

 

For several years now, that had been my habit.

No one blamed me.

 

Ever since I had donated all my remaining wealth—to Orchid's Digital Go Foundation, to Dawa's Tibetan Arts Foundation, and to the Ankh Family Trust.

 

I had stopped using a mobile phone.

No more WhatsApp.

No more WeChat.