I decide to walk into Cambridge from the Botanic Gardens and on the way I grab a coffee and Danish at Cambridge Oven. As I walk along Hills road towards Cambridge, a purple box crashes down from above the Tesco Express in front of me.
It’s a box of Kellogg’s Fruit and Fibre. It’s landed face down with a strapline that says: “So long misery guts, hello happy guts!”
“It’s a message from the other side” I think.
Then I compose myself. I’m thinking that maybe it was students high jinks, chucking it out of the apartment window above Tesco. I compare it to my student shenanigans long ago; especially the occasion where (in an attempt to avoid my room-mate biting it) I backward lobbed a sausage roll on the Stafford to Manchester Express, only to surprise a standing passenger as it slapped him on the the nape.
Back in Cambridge, the windows on the upper floors are all fast shut. Then I notice some movement on a ledge above the shop frontage - a head pops out and eyes me up.
It’s a crow.
It’s watching the box anxiously. The crafty corvid has hoisted the cereal box up onto the ledge and then dropped it in an attempt to break open the Fruit and Fibre. I stop and think about it for a moment and wax lyrical about this exceptional act of nature amidst the bland corporate facade.
I text Char and tell her what I’ve just seen.
A few seconds later I get a response: “Must be constipated.” she says.
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