The Two Crows Mystery

Some time last year we had two hooded crows in the attic. Two hooded crows in the attic? you’re thinking. Well, that doesn’t sound so strange. However, it does bare closer examination.
 
I was sitting in our spare bedroom/office/junk room, either writing with panache, or trawling through the internet looking at sport. Can’t remember which. Suddenly there came a most fearsome stramash from the attic. Thrashing, bangs and crashes, a rancorous uproar. It being broad daylight, I immediately prepared to venture up there. Having seen the Exorcist, I don’t think any of us want to hear strange noises in the attic at two o’clock in the morning. As the nominal ‘Dad’ in the family, I just can’t delegate that kind of activity. ‘There’s something strange in the attic, kids! Could be a burgler, a poltergeist or some other demonic spirit, or perhaps a psychotic serial killer. I’m staying down here with a cup of tea, you kids grab your plastic light sabers and go and investigate.’ They wouldn’t have it. TPCKAM probably wouldn’t accept it either. And there are no lights up there, but lots of windows, so the during the day thing was perfect.

Even so I was aware, as I opened the door and walked tentatively up the stairs, that malevolent possession junkies don’t just work at night. I was circumspect.
 
Up the stairs, braced for an attack, I looked into the dark corners of the attic. There are windows all round, so it is very bright during the day, but attic corners are always in shadow.
 
However, there’s obviously no tension here, because I chose to reveal what was in the attic right at the start. Calculated choice. If I had built and built, and then said, ‘IT WAS A COUPLE OF BIRDS!’ everyone would have been disappointed that it hadn’t turned out to be the evil spirit of King Ra, and that ever since I’ve been spitting green bile and indulging in constant showy displays of head spinning.
 
So, the story itself isn’t that interesting. I opened up a lot of windows and spent about an hour shooing the crows in the direction of freedom, and finally they worked it out and flew off. They didn’t speak to me, we didn’t take them on as pets, we didn’t eat them for dinner.
 
The interesting question is how they got there in the first place. Two crows in the attic. We don’t use the attic for anything other than storage and walking dusty footprints through the rest of the house, so no one had been up there to open a window. All windows locked. The only other obvious answer is under the eaves. That’s what one always says in the bird-in-the-attic situation. Under the eaves.
 
Not that I know much about architecture, but in this case I don’t think under the eaves really cuts it. We don’t really seem to have eaves, not in the classical eaves sense, and it all seems pretty solid up there. And there just don’t seem to be big holes in the roof. Two crows at the same time we’re talking about here. Crows are pretty big. In the last two years there’s not been so much as a sparrow in the attic. If there were holes under the eaves or anywhere else, with a ‘Birds, This Way’ sign, there’d have been all sorts in there. But nothing in just under two years, except two crows at the same time.
 
Wasn’t the windows, and I know I haven’t exactly scientifically proven it, but not under the eaves either. What does it leave? Only one option.
 
A fracture in the space time continuum. It’s the only alternative. In our loft. No wonder the crows were squawking and a bit upset. There they must have been, quietly flying through the blue skies, quite possibly in 15th century France, and whumpf! out of nowhere, they get plucked from some countryside idyll and dumped in a 21st century attic in an eastern European capital. You’re going to be pissed off, aren’t you?
 
So, all things considered, we were pretty lucky. We got two crows. What if we’d got a couple of diplodocus, or a pair of alligators, or David Tennant?
 
The question is, was it a temporary distortion in space-time, or is there a specific place in the corner of our loft that is a permanent time portal? I’m not that keen to find out myself, but I have tried to get the kids to go up there to see if they suddenly disappear. And, despite telling them that it could be a big adventure, like Jack and Annie or the Magic Key, neither of them has taken me up on it so far.
 
The Two Crows Mystery will possibly never be solved…