You, specifically, are being watched by a crow. Not “people in general.” Not “someone out there.” You. This is not a metaphor. This is not a spiritual fable. This is not a goth phase. This is science. We have charts. We have caw-based data. We have a control group that accidentally summoned a parliament of ravens instead (they’re fine now, mostly).

Over a 24-month observational study funded by a grant we may have misunderstood (thank you, Department of Unusual Phenomena and Municipal Pigeon Control), our team conclusively determined that a crow has selected you—yes, you reading this—to be its permanent subject of anthropological curiosity, judgment, and occasional sabotage.

Existential fear has descended upon the venerable stacks of the Silicon Valley College library. Darkness at Noon is among the first to feel it, and not just because of the rat-tat-tatting of jackhammers. Something ominous is also taking place inside: library personnel are yanking cartloads of books off the shelves, denuding them of their spines and covers, feeding them page-by-page into scanners, reassembling them, and as a final outrage packing them into metal bins.

I had the strangest dream last night. I was running through a Beauty and the Beast-esque castle while being chased by a cartoon policeman. A life-long lucid dreamer, I immediately knew this was a dream, not because the law was on my heels in a Disney-inspired castle, but because I was too tall—a miraculous six feet—and also deaf. I was carrying a small grey backpack with a frozen baby inside it. Despite being rock solid in its frozen cage, the baby was somehow alive. My mission was to take it to a magical fridge which could save its life.

The Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, was followed by a brief, embarrassing phase in which one species somehow became dominant: homo sapiens, or “humans.” Humans were mammals who lived on land and watched YouTube.

We first learned about humans when Dr. Martin Hardshell, a forensic crustalogist, was digging in Ancient Philadelphia with his own two claws. Our understanding of world history was fundamentally altered by his discovery of the Fishtown Ukulele and the Manayunk Toupee.

Sometimes, on the verge of a depressive episode, I go online and look at the Arby’s menu as a way to ground myself. It’s a unique methodology of acknowledging the past, the 5 for $5 deal exemplifying just how distant my childhood has become, while also challenging myself to relinquish control by embracing the inherent uncertainty that tomorrow guarantees: Arby’s has introduced Steak Nuggets.