The Crows

After stealing a mysterious figurine from the tomb of the peasant Chu-Tzu, a greedy landlord returns to his mansion to find the rooftop covered in crows. Ignoring his servants' warnings that crows portend danger, the landlord throws a banquet to celebrate his new treasure. But as foretold, disaster strikes, and the figurine is rescued from the ruins of the landlord's property by a passing scavenger. Flash forward one hundred years. The figurine, known as Xiwangmu, reappears in a New York City antiques store and is purchased by a wealthy collector whose well-ordered penthouse life can't dispel his boredom. Acquiring the statuette turns the collector's boredom into terror and a struggle to survive as the curse of crows reasserts itself. Finally, in a future world ravaged by nuclear fire, the Xiwangmu is discovered yet again by a low-ranking "servant to engineers," this time in a surprising new form-its curse transformed by the love of two men for each other into a cosmic blessing.

Glen P. Vecchione, who also writes under the name Glen Peters, is the author of 28 commercial science, math, and history books that have been translated into several languages and distributed throughout the world. His poetry, including a chapbook, appears in Prairie Schooner, Penn Review, ZYZZYVA, Missouri Review, and Chautauqua. His first novel, Where the Nights Smell Like Bread, was published by Rattling Good Yarns Press in 2024. Glen comes to writing from a career as jingle-writer for NBC and theatre composer. His Broadway jazz ballet The Legend of Frankie and Johnny premiered at the Nat Horne Theatre on 42nd Street and toured for two years. Glen currently divides his time between the California desert and Umbria, Italy.