Something I wrote in a creative writing class

I've been apart of a few creative writing classes to help motivate myself to write more and hopefully force a creative epiphany. Instead, I can say without a single doubt that I have uttered the following words while reading someones work "His kisses were like earthquakes, destroying my world as he pulled aside my Cinderella panties."

I felt very much the same as I got to listen to, read, and critique over eighty or so short stories and poems over the length of these classes.

Anyway, each class required a forty page typed portfolio of original work for a pass. You could either commit yourself as a poet or a fiction writer, thus making that specialization the meat of your portfolio and whether or not you actually had to stress out when due dates neared. We were also required to anonymously submit a short story for a class "read around" that mostly boiled down to a lot of abused people secretly showing their wounds or weird people trying to shock everyone or boring people being boring. Funny enough, I never actually finished a short story. Everything I wrote ended up looking more like a "Chapter One" than a short story.

This is one of those, something I thought up when my professor asked me if I ever considered writing something that wasn't science fiction or fantasy.

Story after the jump. (And if anyone can offer some advice on keeping my format so it isn't such an eyesore, I'd appreciate it.)

Caw
(First Chapter)
    “Howdy ma'am! How're you doing today?”
    With a sweat shirt stating she is “Grumpy” with a like minded Disney dwarf, my first guess falls into either “Fine” or “Not bothering to respond or look at you, I'm busy reading the covers of magazines to find out if a celebrity got their butthole bleached.” She does not look up, instead poking something into her cell phone while she decides whether or not to buy a magazine that has a full report on an Obama gay sex scandal.
    At this point I can either attempt to communicate again or move onto the next step. Judging by her age, she is not old enough to be hard of hearing nor is she young enough that it’s unlikely she will complain if I don't lick her toes with excellent customer service. It is even more unlikely she is a “secret shopper” there to gauge whether or not I deserve to be the focus of vindictive management, due to being socially retarded.
    I wait for her to eventually make it to the front of the register and look up to pay. “Howdy ma'am! How are you doing today?”
    “Fine.” There we go! She still does not completely acknowledge me, squinting at the tallying price to make certain I am not stealing her money, because it has happened often enough that she must be vigilant in the face of thieving grocery store clerks who could give a flying care. If you want to give a cashier rage anxiety, just act like you are reading every single price while the transaction list goes down.
    Satisfied that I have not covertly raised the prices on multiple items, she slides me her food stamp card and I ring her out. All the while I am smiling, whistling, and generally being the most adorable cashier ever that only wants to get off to his break, put his head into a noose in a dark room for ten minutes just to dream. This cashier would count the loops and rub the coarse material on his cheek like he is caressing the royal linens; the vision is the most erotic thing I've thought of all day.
    I'm ousted out of my brief fantasy with a swat on the shoulder.
    “Get out.” It's Greg. Greg is your average tall, black-rimmed-glasses girly-pants-wearing goober. I like him.
    “Your face,” I retort.
    “Your Mom's face,” he parries.
    “Fine, I'll take my break and I'll like it.” I stab a few keys to log myself out and elegantly slide out of the register.
    “I bet you will.” The implications likely settling on the perverse and deprecating. Coworker camaraderie is such an under-appreciated behavior.
    ***
    With a bottle of water and an orange in hand, I escape purgatory for some solace in my car -- Literally the only place that it is unlikely I'll have a customer ask me a question. Being asked a question is not a bad thing, really, and in most circumstances I'm more than happy to help people on my company allotted recovery time. But you have ten minutes of break come hell or high water. If someone stops you while you pick out something to drink, you are obligated to help them. You cannot tell a person, whomever they are, that you cannot assist them because you are on break. You will walk them across the store, reach high, and nod with a big smile when they say that is not what they wanted and “Can you please check the back?” You will then happily scoot to the warehouse, stare at a wall for a few minutes, and then come back out to explain the item is not there. You will then grit  your teeth with the sparkliest cheer while you listen to them request an order, at which point you will bring them to the front, write out a note with their information and then finish your break by walking back into your register. That is why I hide.
    It's a busy day, clear and sunny, with baking cars crammed up as close as they can get to lower their owners walking distance by a few steps. I usually park somewhere near the rear, lessening my chances of some yeehaw scratching my car or getting uppity that I'm taking an up front space while on lunch.
    I drive a vomit gold '95 POS series Saturn. When I first got the hand-me-down vehicle, the upholstery was a mess. Being young and amazingly lazy, I never bothered to spruce it up. The results are that the outside matches the inside: A dusty, barf colored monstrosity with congealing speckles ranging from splattered bugs, bird droppings, and maybe food.
    And a crow.
    Once I rounded the silver pickup (Which was wielding a pair of bumper testicles) I parked next to, I came face to face with a crow. Neither of us were startled, likely from seeing our kind daily. But I've never seen a crow stand on the top of my car. Nor have I ever seen one that did not immediately fly away when I got near it. My first reaction is delight. I love crows. They are creatures that have adapted to our urban sprawls and are quite intelligent. I recalled a video showing crows dropping nuts on a crosswalk for cars to break open and waiting for a red light before going to eat. What the hell was an intelligent creature doing on my car, of all cars?
    I had a brief conflict that my car might have gone too far into the natural waste category, and the wild was now attempting to reclaim it. But I wanted to eat my damn orange, so I attempted the next logical step.
    “Hey buddy. How you doin'?” The crow did that thing birds do, tilting its head with quick jerks to watch me as I approached. Some might find that unnerving, but when you work enough closing shifts you see some humans acting like that already.
    “What are you doing on my car, crow? I gotta get in.” I take a few steps forward, my back against the pickup, hoping the thing would spook and bugger off. It called my bluff, rearranging itself to face me. I was suddenly keenly aware that I really don't want to be face first with this bird, for fear that it will eat my eyes. Its common knowledge that all birds want to violently peck out your eyes.
    “Are you kidding me?” If I am able to handle one force of nature in dealing with the public, I can certainly work around the one that decided to plant itself on my car. I back away and around, figuring I'll just take my break in the passenger seat.
    The crow hopped over to the passenger side as I approached, regarding me curiously. I folded my arms and gave the bird an indignant, half-lidded eyes look that a pet owner gives their animals when they are inadvertently outsmarted by them. Fine, screw you, bird. I jump forward, throwing my arms up and belching some guttural noises. The startled crow hops back with a strangled squawk and flies away. I make a hasty entrance and begin peeling my orange, noting I had a minute or two to gorge and return. Chuckling, I realize I should have just swung my water at the crow. I didn't want to hurt it, but I doubt it wanted to be beaned with a bottle of water, either.
    Click. Click-cl-click. Click.
    At this point I am rightly confused. I have a crow on my car, apparently tapping over my head now. I pop my door open a crack and squeeze my head out for a look. I get loudly crowed in the face, almost spilling me out of my car, trailing obscenities that I would later hope nobody complained about inside. I gather myself up, now away from my car again. I half-squint in abject confusion as the crow perches itself on my partly opened door. My break is likely over, my orange is half-peeled on my car seat, and there is a persistent crow looming over my passenger door. The “My Head in a Noose” fantasy starts to creep on the corners of my imagination as I carefully exit the car.
    “You're a dick, Crow.” I point at the creature, partially amused. I kick the door closed, causing the bird to flutter in the air briefly before planting itself firmly on top of my car again. It squawked at me while I hurried back inside. I masterstroked the scene by giving it the finger.
***
    “You're late.” Greg was still on the register, nursing his own grim fantasy. Sundays do this to everyone.
    “Sorry. There was a crow on my car.” I begin bagging an order while Greg finishes up, going through the usual “Hi, how yah doin'? Wouldja like paper or plastic, sir/ma'am?” This routine might as well be as much of a backdrop to my day as breathing.
    “That doesn't make any sense, Kev.” Greg didn't bother looking at me. Open conversation between coworkers while customers are present is a good way to get someone with no life seeking out new purpose in making your day worse. Usually doesn't stop us
    “Yeah. A crow. On my car. My door. It wouldn't go away. When I was able to get in, it pecked the top of my car until I got out.” Greg and I began to switch places, causing the next in line to roll her eyes and make herself as revolting as humanly possible. Greg wandered over to the windows while I started swiping the next order.
    “That... that is a crow on your car,” admitted Greg when he returned, grinning.
    “It's still there?”
    “And yelling at people passing by. You have a guard crow.”
    “It's guarding me out of my own car.”
    “Still awesome.”
    As it would have it, the crow haunted my car for the rest of the day, flapping and yelling at anything that got close with the fury of a porch-stranded old man. At one point the crow got into a screaming match with a dog in a neighboring car.
    The spectacle was becoming something of an event for the stores front end, most taking time to watch and speculate as my car guardian waged vocal war on everyone in sight. Our resident/obligatory punky/gothy girl, Molly, decided on calling the bird Craven.
    “Why Craven? Craven the Raven?” I questioned, blinking.
    “Yes! He is Craven the Raven and sort of a dick.”
    “I'm pretty sure he is a crow.”
    “I'm pretty sure you can shut up.” She was beaming. Camaraderie, really.
    Seeing as I could not get into my car for lunch, I took it inside and considered what I was going to do about Craven. Was he going to follow me home? Was he even going to let me near my car without ramming a beak into my eyeball? I'm still lost on why he decided to guard my car.
    “Maybe you are dying and he is here to take your soul to the next life?” Greg was easily the most interested in theorycrafting the reasons I had Craven on my car, attempting to tie the bird in with bad omens.
    “That movie sucked.” The store had died down, the after-work rush having filtered through with their carboloads and pseudo-organic money sinks. The only thing left for me was to keep looking busy until my shift ended, which mostly involved blindly eyeballing magazines. I was getting a surprising amount of anxiety thinking about confronting an indignant bird.
    “Maybe he is here to deliver your letter of admittance to Hogwarts.” Greg ventured, grinning in a way that only people excited about possibly getting punched in the face could.
    “That was owls.”
    “That was also fantasy.” He raised a finger for his counterpoint.
    “And crows somehow make it not fantasy? Like jamming a k on the end of magic? Magick?” I had a sudden vision of everything fat, eyelined, and insane. I waved to Molly ecstatically. Her eyes narrowed.
    “Yeah, crows are hardcore.” I guess I couldn't argue with that, knowing I currently have a crow on my car that has probably been spewing hate speech for the better part of the day.
    “Maybe I should make him a white hood.” I muttered.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    The last bits of my shift passed uneventfully and I soon found myself standing in the crisp night air, looking at my lone car parked in one corner of the lot. With a vigilant crow named Craven.
    “Dammit.” I head over to my car, noting that although Craven had noticed me, it was a silent notice. Standing in front of my door, hands in pocket, I face the anomaly in my daily grind.
    “Hi.” I give a little wave. Craven tilts his head and shifts side to side.
    “I'm getting in my car now.” I slide my key in, leaning my face out of eye gouging range. Craven just watches with his curious twitching as I open my door and ease in. I find myself in a silence with the door firmly shut. I sniff, remembering my half-peeled orange. Feeling like I am suddenly apart of some cosmic event that requires a seemingly innocuous act to balance out the greater karmic state of reality, I pop open my door again and set the orange on the asphalt.
    “Thanks.”
    I close the door and start my car up, a tiny puff of relief in my chest that the beast decided to start another day. The tape player clicks and clacks, attempting to read and process a tape that was never there. Satisfied, the radio murmurs to life with the news. My car is like a deranged old woman, sometimes. A lot of non-human things in my life are like old people, it seems. Like Craven. Curious, I sit up, trying to see the orange outside my door. Is he still on top of my car?
    “CRRAH!!”
    My head slams into the side window as my body involuntarily lurches away from the sound. I suddenly felt like a terrified cat attempting to flee from a vacuum cleaner through a sliding glass door. My fight response quickly strangled out my flee response, turning me to face... Craven. Standing on my passenger seat.
    “The Christ? What?” Why is Craven in my car? How did Craven get in my car?
    “Get out!” I practically shrieked, startled. Craven met my command by sitting.
    “No, get out of my car, bird.” I reached over the crow, forgetting the fear of having my eyes violently dislodged, and began unlocking the passenger door.
    “Your face.”
    I'll admit, I peed a little. Stretched over, my face hanging above this crow, my fingertips wedged at the door handle, I peed a little. Craven tilted his head to the side, staring up at me. The glacier silence was taking years off my life faster than smoking. I blinked and took the next logical step.
    “What.” I half-stated and half-asked.
    “The Christ?” There, okay, the bird opened its beak and words came out. The bird mentioned a holy figure, which means it can't be demonic. It also mentioned it as a question. Is it asking me if I am Christ? No, it must be repeating things it heard. But that means it heard what I said inside. How is that even possi-?
    “That movie sucked,” Crawed Craven, blinking at me.
***
    Click-click-click.
    “Kevin? Are you alright? Is... is that Craven?”
    I glanced up from between my hands pressed against my temples. It was Molly. She had changed out of her work uniform into something more zombie apocalypse appropriate (If you're a nerd). Turning my attention to my car from the curb I was sitting on, I nodded at the bird idly tapping the glass of the drivers side window.
    “Why is Craven in your car?”
    “I don't know.” I was way past the how or why, more on to figuring out how to detonate my car and find enough salt to cover the surrounding area. It was sounding more doable than finding a priest to bless a swimming pool and help me push my car in.
    “Why... don't you just let him out? It looks like he wants out.” Molly had placed her palm on the glass where Craven was tapping, causing him to mutely yell at her until she removed her hand and allowed him to keep tapping.
    “Because he's talking.”
    “What?” Molly raised a brow, not removing her gaze from the diligently pecking Craven.
    “Talking. Words. He's repeating things I've said today. He also snuck into my car. With the doors closed.” I'm still trying to work that out without my brain hemorrhaging.
    “That's... weird. But I don't think it would hurt to let him out. I don't think he wants to be in there... oh.”
    Reaching over and pulling the door open, Molly saw my earlier conclusion. Craven  hopped away from the window and perched himself on the passenger seat. Waiting.
    “Maaaybe... You should just take him home?
    “What? No. That thing is possessed.”
    “I don't know. It might be neat. He might be magic.” Molly twiddled her fingers mysteriously.
    “Magic with a k.” I muttered, the idea of bringing home an intelligent demon bird starting to look more appealing than dreaming of groping a noose in darkness while I ring up an order for some blob with a Tinkerbell wallet. I lean forward, finding Craven looking back at me with his soulless tar pit of an eye.
    I'm taking this bird home.