Therapy Bits

Thanks to Di for hosting the 3TC!

Three Things Challenge #MM182 | pensitivity101

Our words today are deter, shot, and kill.

Here is my take.

The scarecrow was supposed to deter them. Its arms stretched stiffly over the cornrows, its button eyes daring the blackbirds to come closer. But the birds always came, clever and unbothered, pecking the ears until the kernels fell like teeth.

Eleanor stood on the porch with her father’s old rifle balanced in her hands. She’d never fired it before, never even wanted to. But this morning, she’d found half the crop ruined. Another season like this and she wouldn’t make it through winter.

She took a breath, lifted the gun, and aimed at the sky.

The first shot cracked too high, and the birds scattered in a frantic cloud. For a heartbeat, the field was empty, quiet, still. Eleanor lowered the rifle, her arms trembling, her chest rising fast.

Then she saw it—a crow on the ground, wings broken, dragging itself in the dirt. It hadn’t flown fast enough.

Her throat tightened. She hadn’t meant to kill. She walked toward it, boots pressing down the stalks. The bird’s beak clicked, black eyes burning with a strange accusation.

She raised the rifle again, but her finger froze on the trigger. It was only a crow. Just a crow.

But it was suffering.

The second shot was softer, somehow, though it rang just as loud in her ears.

The field seemed emptier than before, the silence heavier. She dragged the scarecrow down, stuffed its straw chest into the fire pit, and lit a match. Its face burned last, the grin curling into ash.

Tomorrow, she would hang tin cans on strings, maybe rig up some clattering windchimes. Something noisy, harmless. Something that would scare without breaking.

She never wanted to feel that silence again.