In “Chap­ter Fifty-Eight” of *If These Wings Could Fly*, the nar­ra­tive opens with a sense of quiet­ness and reflec­tion after a tumul­tuous night. The pro­tag­o­nist’s moth­er, despite the restora­tion of their home, is acute­ly aware of the emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal scars left behind. The atmos­phere is pal­pa­ble, char­ac­ter­ized by a long, silent week­end filled with an oppres­sive feel­ing as the father main­tains a firm grip on the house­hold. He keeps the phone and the keys, restrict­ing their free­dom, leav­ing the pro­tag­o­nist feel­ing pow­er­less and hes­i­tant to resist.

As the pro­tag­o­nist engages in writ­ing a crow-themed col­umn, they delve into Celtic mythol­o­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Mor­ri­g­an, a god­dess asso­ci­at­ed with fate and death, often depict­ed as a crow. This mytho­log­i­cal ref­er­ence serves as a poignant back­drop, par­al­lel­ing the pro­tag­o­nist’s own feel­ings of fore­bod­ing as they wit­ness a swarm of crows block­ing out the sun out­side their win­dow. The local government’s deci­sion to address the crow sit­u­a­tion adds fur­ther ten­sion, sig­nal­ing immi­nent change as the crows’ days in Auburn Town­ship grow num­bered.

A moment of dis­trac­tion occurs when a wind scat­ters papers across the desk, lead­ing to the dis­cov­ery of a pink fly­er about a schol­ar­ship con­test with a loom­ing dead­line. This con­test sym­bol­izes the dual­i­ty of pride—the pride that con­ceals harsh truths and encour­ages silence about injus­tices. The pro­tag­o­nist reflects crit­i­cal­ly on their com­mu­ni­ty, not­ing how pride fos­ters an envi­ron­ment where hor­ror is over­looked and cries for help go unan­swered. They rec­og­nize the ten­den­cy of Auburn’s res­i­dents to avoid uncom­fort­able truths, as they dis­mis­sive­ly adhere to the notion that issues are “none of our busi­ness.”

As the chap­ter con­cludes, the pro­tag­o­nist pre­pares to form a pow­er­ful the­sis: “It is not the crows that make Auburn ugly.” This state­ment under­scores the pri­ma­ry theme of the chap­ter, hint­ing at a deep­er explo­ration of under­ly­ing social issues with­in the town, illus­trat­ing how per­cep­tion shapes real­i­ty and the ugly truths that per­sist beneath the sur­face.