Currawong

The City of Witches has been a stranger to rain in the last few months. The desiccating grey fingers of drought have stroked her hills to dun and clay, and plucked down to dead branches her trees. It's been colder, which has blunted drought's seduction, but the earth can hold onto its maidenly virtue for only so long.

But down from the mountains, the crazy-eyed black-white currawongs have come. They have mad yellow eyes, ever seeking food discarded or eggs unattended. The currawongs are not thieves but bandits. They take by force, stealthy where possible, brutal were necessary. They tell themselves that they had no choie, that they are the victims here. They warble insanely to each other, boasting of their exploits or mourning for the innocence they vaguely recall they once had.

They brought the winter rain with them, down from the mountains. Misty curtains ebb slowly through the dark-stained trees and huddled suburbs, through which the currawongs gyre and hunt. They misplaced the sun. But the rain makes everything but currawongs slow, vulnerable, and they feast. Birds of mad winter rain and melancholic cold, it is their season: currawong.