My home town is a farming town. Meaning haphazardly parceled plots of crop land as far as the eye can see. Over worked and underpaid citizenry, who have not else but toil and drink to occupy time on the whole.

The oppressive tedium experienced by those growing up under such conditions is hard to convey, if it has never been experienced first hand.

However trust this tedium is a strong motivator for varying degrees of perplexing behavior, which otherwise could not be explained.

Such as our interactions with it.

I cannot in good faith call it a bird any longer, but it is a thing which looks like a bird. in the likeness of a Magpie to be exact.

In my town, every child knows know there is an old rotten fence post, in a rather remote field. If you go to this post and leave a small offering such as an exceptional marble, or other small bobble which catches the eye.

Then return the next day and find the offering gone. There will be a Magpie nearby.

for this stage you MUST bring some food with you. I personally favored teddy grams. However most who did this would bring worms, berries or the like.

Assuming you successfully made an offering, and the Magpie appeared. You are allowed to ask it to find something for you.

The Magpie then flies off slowly, leading you to the object, assuming you're willing to follow it.

Keeping in mind It never takes you to exact things, nor can you be exact in your request for what is to be found.

For example, one can ask the Magpie to find something blue. The Magpie will then take you to an old blue car. Ask it to take you to your cat, It will take you to an old stump which casts a shadow in the likeness of a cat.

This uncertainty of where the Magpie will take you is the attraction of the game, why adolescents in my town would engage with it.

The last step of the Magpie game is, once it takes you to your destination, you had to handover whatever edible tender you brought with you.

With the transaction concluded, the Magpie then parts ways.

I had never heard of someone stiffing the Magpie its due at games conclusion. It was a matter of honor among us children…. until someone did it.

That someone was me.

For you see, as the months worn on. I could think of less things to ask of the Magpie.

Lacking a better idea, I asked it to take me to my future.

It took me to a bent and broken person, tangled in morning glory and forgotten cotton plants. blankets of ants craving out pathways across decaying flesh.

I ran.

Concluding our game, I fear will somehow seal the outcome of my days.

The Magpie never left me.

Its been 15 odd years.

Yet its always watching somewhere nearby.

Demanding payment I'll never give.