【Animals】【The Crow Who Makes Pasta】【Animal Series #03】

Every Friday night at seven, once a month, I eat pasta made by Mr. Crow.
It’s been five years already.

My favorite pasta he makes is pescatore—
pescatore, the fisherman’s pasta, tomato-based with seafood.
It was my father’s signature dish.

He had been an Italian chef, running a pasta restaurant called Poponpetto for over ten years.
They said he studied abroad in Italy—he was a respectable chef.

One day, a woman who used to dine there often became my mother.
Years later, they married, and I was born.

But Father was weak to alcohol, and to women.
When I was twelve, my parents divorced.
I went with Mother. That was five years ago.

Since then, I haven’t seen Father.
Mother raised me alone.
I wasn’t unhappy. I had friends. School was fun.

Those peaceful days went on—
until one spring night,
a restless kind of dusk where nothing was wrong, yet I couldn’t sleep.
Through the gap in the curtain, a crow slipped into my room.

“What on earth!?” I thought.

I let out a small “hii!”—
but the crow didn’t care.
It flapped its wings briskly, went straight to the kitchen, and began cooking.

I was about to shout, “No, no, no, no!” but words failed me.
What was even happening?

And yet, for some reason, it didn’t feel unpleasant.

Before I knew it, the crow was cooking with elegant precision—
he made puttanesca and placed the dish on the table.

“Eat this,” I heard him say—
or maybe I only imagined it.

Why on earth should I eat pasta made by a housebreaking crow?
Feathers, hygiene, logic—all wrong!
But somehow… I was a fool.
After a while, I tried it.

Suddenly, tears welled up.
It was the taste of my childhood.

When I turned back, the crow was gone.

Dream or illusion—I spent the next few days in a daze.

A week passed. I waited, half expecting him.
Exactly a week later, he came again,
made carbonara, and flew away.

Little by little, I grew used to it—
to this ridiculous miracle.

The reason? I still don’t know.
But the crow and I shared a secret hour each week.
He’d enter through the window, cook pasta,
serve it, then vanish. That was all.

Everything about it was absurd.

Two years ago, Mother found out.
She chuckled softly and ate the crow’s peperoncino.

Nothing special happened—
but she hid a trembling expression,
the kind one wears when holding back tears.

After that, when Mother was home,
Mr. Crow always cooked for two.

His pasta was exquisite.
All of them were delicious,
but pescatore was my favorite.

Poponpetto, Father’s old restaurant, was famous for its pasta.
Father cooked, Mother served,
and I grew up watching them.

Those were my childhood days—
the days of laughter and warmth.

Five years after Mr. Crow began visiting,
Mother opened a café.

“You’re a fool,” I told her.
“Shut up,” she replied.

She named it Corvo—Italian for “crow.”

After graduating high school, I worked there.
Once a week, Mr. Crow came to cook pasta.

A sign on the door read:

“Our chef is a crow.
If this bothers you, please refrain from entering.”

Childhood somehow returned, piece by piece.

Eventually, I met a man at the café,
and we fell in love.
Soon I decided to leave my childhood home.

That night, at Corvo,
Mr. Crow appeared again
and made pescatore.

The scent stirred a memory—
my fifth birthday,
the first time Father made it for me.
Every year after that, on my birthday, pescatore.
Until the day he was gone.

From the kitchen,
Mr. Crow turned slightly toward me.
I thought I heard,
“I’m sorry. Happy birthday.”

I smiled faintly and whispered back,

“It’s all right, Dad.
I was happy. Thank you.”