Jaak

drawn 2025


By a twist of fate, a young crow once ended up in my hands. I had to decide — let him die, or raise him myself. I chose the latter.

At first, there was some mild resistance from my parents, but once they saw the fight was for the right cause, they let me go on.
Jaak was rather helpless in the beginning: he couldn’t fly and cawed without pause. I fed him bread soaked in milk and small fish. He grew strong quickly. When Jaak finally took flight, I felt as though I myself had made a few swift circles beneath the sky.

He turned out to be an unbelievably clever and creative character. His adventures alone could easily fill a proper children’s book, but I made a few charcoal drawings, so Jaak wouldn’t be forgotten.

Jaak lived with us the whole summer. In autumn, as school drew near and I began to wonder what would become of him, He seemed to understand on his own and quickly gathered a gang of wild crows to fly around with and caw in chorus. He was twice their size, and it was instantly clear who the conductor was. By the end of summer, he was spending less time at home and more with his new companions. Before school began, he had abandoned his nest box completely. When I looked inside to see if he had left me any treasure, it turned out he had: Beer caps, cigarette butts, paperclips, colourful bits of plastic, and other scraps.

The only truly functional item was my grandfather’s purple toothbrush, which had, quite mysteriously, disappeared from the sauna earlier that summer.