It wasn’t hovering. And looming isn’t the right word either. It wasn’t looming or hovering when I first saw it, when it first saw me. And I’d think nothing of it except that I woke pre-dawn, woke up, got up from my bed, got dressed, walked downstairs to the kitchen, turned the coffee pot on. Through the window into the backyard I could see that we had left some dishes on the patio table the night before, so I opened the back door, walked down the stairs with everything still covered in darkness, darkness both above my head in the sky and in my head where I was still slowly waking up. I picked up one of the dishes. Then out of the corner of my eye, movement. A flicker. Not a flicker, a swoop. A large bird. Hawk. Vulture. Enormous crow. No, none of those. An owl. Perched on the back edge of a chair less than six feet from me, closer than six feet, too close for comfort.
THE THREAD | The owl
THE THREAD | The owl
THE THREAD | The owl
It wasn’t hovering. And looming isn’t the right word either. It wasn’t looming or hovering when I first saw it, when it first saw me. And I’d think nothing of it except that I woke pre-dawn, woke up, got up from my bed, got dressed, walked downstairs to the kitchen, turned the coffee pot on. Through the window into the backyard I could see that we had left some dishes on the patio table the night before, so I opened the back door, walked down the stairs with everything still covered in darkness, darkness both above my head in the sky and in my head where I was still slowly waking up. I picked up one of the dishes. Then out of the corner of my eye, movement. A flicker. Not a flicker, a swoop. A large bird. Hawk. Vulture. Enormous crow. No, none of those. An owl. Perched on the back edge of a chair less than six feet from me, closer than six feet, too close for comfort.