I’m fascinated by methods of telling the future. I dabbled in tasseomancy as a kid (I was a weird kid, you may recall), but now I mostly play around with Tarot cards when I’m feeling conflicted or uncertain. It’s not that I necessarily believe in telling the future, much less my own ability to do so, more that I like the feeling of thinking, even for a second, that the world is organized enough that I might be able to divine what’s in store.

Omens are fascinating, and I have a particularly good one to share. I was walking to school once with my best friend (with whom I do an excellent podcast, by the way), when she asked me what that sound was. I looked at her, confused, and suddenly there was a crunchy, solid thump behind us. We turned around to find a crow dead on the sidewalk, having just fallen out of the air behind us.

How can you not take that as an omen? Looking up the symbolic meaning of crows, they themselves are not necessarily bad omens. A dead one, though? A dead one that plummeted out of the sky right behind you? That’s a little more difficult to say.

Anyway, here’s a drabble.

AUSPICE

(Noun: from Latin auspicum, meaning “divination from the flight of birds”)

A divine or prophetic token.

Isaac had a talent for knowing when something was wrong. A feeling in his stomach, a tingling at the back of his neck. He knew when a bad thing was on the horizon as sure that he knew he was hungry or tired; there was no question to it.

Something prickled its way up his arms, a warning whispered across his skin. He tried to shrug it off but everywhere he went he felt eyes on him, watching him twitch and rub anxiously at his goosebumps.

He looked out his window to see a hundred crows, their beady eyes staring.