Marty Reeder

I stood perplexed. I was looking at an insect I had never seen before. The bug was the size of my thumb and shifted awkwardly in what little dirt could be found just below the bare ridge of the Wellsvilles.

I had a festering contempt for any bird of the corvid variety—corvid meaning crows, ravens, magpies … you know, the boring/detestable birds.