Open-arse, that's the Mediaeval name for the medlar fruit. A scholar should pride themselves on being well versed in Old English colloquialisms. I remember this term when I find the woman on May Day, the heady stench of shit emanating from her corpse. She is nude, quince sized, bruised, with long damson hair that would make perfect material for nesting. I snatch her from the forest floor and ascend. I have never devoured something magical before. Surely I deserve a little bonne bouche. Decay makes medlars sweeter, so I leave the woman to blett in the birdhouse. This isn’t some snack of acorns I’d wolf down, it's a culinary experiment. I’m clever like that.

Mottled skin turns cherry black, her tiny muscles putrefy into jam and she smells so sticky and divine I want to gobble her up. The flies, too, crave her sweetness. They buzz with incessant desire, a needling that slips  under my claws. Just a nip, please squire, they beg. I understand, they wish to slake their thirst, but one featherlight touch and she will burst, spraying the walls with a patina of syrupy entrails. Did you know the ability to delay pleasure is an indicator of intelligence? Have patience brothers, I caw. The time of feasting is almost upon us.

Everything is blooming most violently on the day I decide to eat her. Picking the right moment requires a certain amount of judgement; if I take her too soon she’ll be underripe but leaving her longer is a risk. I’m nervous. It’s quite silly, a predator like me should not hesitate to take one’s quarry. I stab my beak into her distended stomach and it lets out a satisfying pop. I suck out her guts and taste delectable ambrosia, treacle on my tongue. Rotting magic fills my stomach and leaves me thrumming. And then a change, an augmentation, molars growing inside my beak, and I gnash and tear at gristle until I reach her core.

I stumble out of the birdhouse into the noonday heat, full of honeyed decay. Sun drunk, I am giddy and all apart. I had not anticipated such a potent fermentation. Grinding my new teeth together, I launch myself from the branch, spiralling up into cerulean. The flies follow me like tiny angels. The world below me contracts and I soar until my feathers catch alight and I burn cruciform in the white spring sun. Euphoria charges through me. God is dead, brothers, I smile at the flies, teeth glinting in the sun as flames lick my feathers. CORVUS REX. I am your crow king.

🪰🍊