Perceptions On a Summer's Day (may vary)

He watched the path down where the it came out from under the buckbrush. Something just out of sight was coming towards him. It was much louder than he would have thought anything that would fit under there could be. True, the sound of it's passage, more ambling than charging, seemed louder because of the many seasons' worth of fallen oak leaves there.

Little Head-Bob the owl sat on the black oak branch some thirty feet up from the ground. He listened with unease, even though he knew the odds of anything down there being a threat to him up here were pretty slim. He was learning gradually to not make rash moves over hasty conclusions about what were often, really, non-threats. 

More than once he had leapt from the safe comfortable nest into the roaring campfire, so to speak, just to get away from nothing. When he told this observation to his mate she responded that he had gotten awfully wordy, no doubt from spending too much time around humans. 




The old turtle paid attention to everything as he moved through the woods. He felt the brittle crackling of the dry leaves under his feet and the small sticks scraping along the sides of his shell. He heard the wind in the trees. He smelled the prickly pear fruit, just ripe, up there next to the sandstone place. 

He might enjoy that if he got up there, perhaps even this afternoon if he kept a steady pace. He couldn't see that far with his near sighted turtle-vision, but he could certainly almost taste the cactus fruit. Were prickly pears worth traipsing around out in the open up on the sandstone? He knew sometimes hungry coyotes howled there in the night.

He stopped and thought about that and about the great horned owl sitting in the tree on the edge of the little clearing just ahead. He drew into his shell then, closing the door in front of his eyes. 

It had been many seasons since he had, as a tiny shelled hatch-ling, crossed paths with a great horned owl. He had survived that then and he was pretty sure it was no real threat to him now. Still, it made him anxious. 

Turtles' long memories gave them plenty of things to think about, plenty of things to stay in about. At least Bobby's memories did. There in his cozy shell, insulated from outside concerns, he fell into a half dosing kind of sleep as the morning turned to noon.



Bob dreamt of walking the path through the woods on the hill, up towards the old sandstone. His perspective seemed curiously skewed. He was seeing the woods from a bit above what he thought of as his normal perspective. Still he was not up as high as say, a bird gliding through the trees searching for poor slow little things to pounce upon. He saw himself wondering why he had thought of it that way. Walking along in his dream he hummed an old tune about a broken arrow and a bottle of rain to make himself feel calmer, but then he couldn't remember why.

He bolted upright in his bed wide-eyed at the sound of one word, one syllable spoken loudly, somewhere in the room right there next to him. He looked over at his wife. Sound asleep, she had her head buried under the pillow. She had surely not made that sound. The room was silent now. All he could hear was the ringing in his ears. The Ring said nearly nothing. Just *

He got out of bed and walked into his son's room. Nothing. He walked down the stairway, through the living room, the dining room, the kitchen. Nothing. He blinked once, slowly, there in the kitchen, in the dark.



Bobby shook himself awake inside his shell and opened his eyes. It felt as though something had been reset in his mind, in his... feelings. Never mind, he saw himself think. He could feel it was warming up out there now and he opened his shell and started off through the underbrush.

He vaguely recalled being anxious about something that had startled him. Some sound, some sharp intake of information, unsought and unprepared for.  He stepped out of the concealing brush.

Owls didn't need to concern him now he thought, though every now and then one might come down to rasp stark warnings about the nature of crows and clack it's sharp beak at him. They tended to vocalize their opinions too much he thought. Most things did. The old turtle walked resolutely past the big owl's perch as it watched him now, in stony silence.

Bobby liked the mourning doves though. Their soft murmurings as they tucked each other in, to keep safe through the night, comforted him greatly sometimes. The sound meant something tender, and hopeful, and brave.

It reminded him of the promise of spring, heard and tasted even in the chill fall air as he would be going into some dark den to hibernate, perhaps never to come out again.

He smelled the sweet prickly pears again as he stepped out of the trees, up onto the warm sandstone, and into the full open sunlight. 
He heard the mourning doves cooing softly, somewhere, just behind him.







For your listening pleasure:
"Broken Arrow" Robbie Robertson, Acoustic cover by Mr. Brad Cole

 

"My World", Bob said, "Not Thurber's, and Welcome To It"

Bob was somewhere in a dream, moving, no — driving, in a car, somehow having just come down from some great height with a jolt yet surprisingly still intact, sort of, and into a landscape — no a road, no not a road — sand and dunes, others all racing around him, and

*FLASH!*

Little Head-Bob awoke.  Something felt, no — something WAS wrong. He couldn’t focus his eyes. There was something, sand perhaps, in the wind—in a wind that was blowing into his eyes and — there was no wind.  Maybe not even his eyes, but still, something was not right. Something was wrong. The young owl could not get his eyes to focus, his. . . smell wasn’t working, the leaves of the tree, his tree, an ancient black oak, a black jack, they wouldn’t come right. They just weren’t right.

Something seemed to strike him in the head — on the inside of his head. He tilted his head, and tilted it some more and one of his feet, he couldn’t tell which one, let go of the branch. It lifted of its own accord. He couldn’t make it come back down, couldn’t make his strong talons grip again the branch. He listed farther to one side, the leg kept lifting. In a panic he shook and fell, down and down and, so fast the ground came up, he knew he was dying and

*FLASH!*

Bob woke, something felt, no — something WAS — wrong. He couldn’t get his mind to focus. Someone was talking, he could hear words, coming across the room — he was in a room, and he could hear her speaking. He knew he should be able to understand the sounds she was making. . . words. She was speaking words. He could tell. And she was upset. He knew this, but still he could not make the words come into focus.
Reality was. . . not right. Time was moving wrong. It wasn’t moving backwards, but wasn’t flowing right, either. It was like sitting in a meadow, when the warm spring breeze that was drifting from behind was suddenly a stiff wind in your face, full of sand. And screwing your eyes shut tight, you suddenly couldn’t tell where you were and

*FLASH!*

It wasn’t that time, that reality, was moving backwards, it was more like reality was a cat. Reality was a cat being petted, but the wrong way, against the lay of its fur, and the woman, she was upset. She was speaking, weeping, and he could not understand her words and. . . 

He was walking, outside. He had just passed one of Claire’s vineyards, was coming up on Maeve’s orchard, he could smell the peaches, ripe and almost overripe. The thing was there again, just over his shoulder, his. . . left shoulder, he could feel it there, keeping pace with him, not pouncing, but just, almost, ready to.  He was alone. No, I — I was alone. I am alone. Where am I? What day is this? 

 “Friday,” the thing, keeping pace with me, just over my left shoulder, says.

*FLASH!*

Bob blinked. Something had just happened. He wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t get a bead on where he was, when he was. Time, it wasn’t moving backward, exactly. It was more that time, that reality, was a stream flowing around him, and he was spinning out of control, moving, no the stream, the river of time, it was moving, at break-neck speed, and Bob was staying in one place, but spinning. 

“It’s all right,” she said, there, just over his left shoulder.

He was walking past Maeve’s Orchard, coming up on one of Claire’s vineyards. There, sitting on a branch in one of the peach trees, no – in a black jack tree, a young owl blinked, was looking at him and… just fell off its branch.

*flash*

This piece originally appeared on Amwriting.org

The Hilltop, Sandstone, and …

This is my Debut #FridayFlash story, Written for Amwriting.org. Thanks to @JohannaHarness, and to #amwriting, for having me.

Bob knew the path from the house up through the woods by heart. He could take it at a full run in pitch dark by feel without ever stumbling or hitting a snag.

At the top of the hill, in a clear swath that ran the width of the woods, were the sandstone places. Just there by where he made his fires he would often find one of the great horned owls sitting up in an oak that was part of the last “virgin woods” in the county. He liked it here. Quieter, safer, than back in town.
Bob never quite fit in back in town. In grade school he was the little guy with Clark Kent glasses, nose always in a book, didn’t even try at sports. Just too perfect a target to resist for some. Kind of kid had to take a different door out of school, a different route home every day, for fear he’d get beat up. Then that one day in gym he just lost it. Dove on the bigger kid, had him by the throat, purple and gasping on the floor before the other guys pulled Bob off. They mostly left him alone after that. But Bob was still angry.
Now days he did much of the same stuff his few high school friends did. He drove around in his V-Dub, listening to Rock N Roll, laughing and shouting, drinking and smoking, singing along to The Who and not quite getting it all and knowing he wasn’t. And he worried about everything and nothing. And he was still angry.
As much as he loved this place, these woods, he felt like he didn’t quite belong here either. It seemed that he hadn’t quite passed some test. Bob wondered if he would ever belong anywhere, indeed sometimes wondered if there was much point in bothering with any of it. And Bob was still angry.
Something seemed different today. There was an extra quiet to the woods, not just the normal thing. Something was missing, and something else was there. Most days during the hot Kansas summer the woods had their own sounds. Small animals coming and going, the breeze through the black jacks. Amazing how much noise a turtle could make trundling through the dead leaves.
Sitting by his fire, he tried to follow the old pipe way, praying with the pipe to the East, the West, the North, and the South. No one here to teach him those ways now. He’d have to muddle through as best he could on his own. He felt the smoke take him then. And he felt The Other too.
Bob had tried to put the fears, troubles, and the anger all out of his mind. Those kinds of feelings weren’t compatible with the smoke. He knew bad thoughts or bad feelings could let bad things in between the big spaces. He hoped that instead the smoke would give him some relief, let him forget, to just stare at the stars later on.
He saw that the fire had burnt low, didn’t bother to add to it. It was after all mid summer, the evening just a little cool up here on this low hill. As dark came on fully, he smoked the pipe again, this time with just a nod to the four directions. The smoke came on stronger now.
Bob felt the wind not just in the trees, but inside his head. He heard the calling of the owls, the singing of the coyotes. And then, something coming. Something BIG coming, and still coming … and then, stopping. Bob felt it there, just out of the light, watching and listening. He could feel its strength, feared its power. He didn’t know what it was, but he knew it could snuff him out in a second, if it chose.
All of his fears, all of his anger slammed down on him like a mighty wind, unstoppable and unrelenting. He lay back on the sandstone, not quite giving up hope, but no longer resisting. He let loose the feelings, let the thing take him where and how it would.
Gi lo Sa quo hi rode his pony slowly up the hill from the south. It had been another long day of traveling on his family’s annual excursion up north to trade. Late, it had already gone full dark. Ten days each direction it took, and the way grew wearisome some times. Lately, he had found himself feeling as though time were running out somehow. He had heard rumors about the new people coming from the east. So far away it was, but their conquest was mighty it was told. He had heard they were crazy, that they destroyed the land wherever they went. He wondered what would become of this place, if any would honor it later.
Coming to the top of the hill, just up from the living spring, he knew something was changed. Drawn by some new sense he broke off from the others and walked the pony a ways to the west. There, just this side of the trees he could see the glow of a camp fire it seemed. Cautious now, he got down, leaving his pony to knicker gently in question as he crept forward to see a figure there asleep by the fire. Closer still, this young man, no older than his own sons, was not of The People. The boy’s skin was too light, his clothes entirely strange, of no hide or weave he knew. This must be one of the new people. But why was he here all alone, no weapons, no pony, no food, not even a blanket. Gi lo Sa quo hi moved closer still, leaned down, drew back. He was not to touch, only to see, to know, and perhaps to offer some comfort to a lost spirit, adrift far from its rightful home. Reaching in his pouch, he drew out one feather, beaded along its quill, the story pattern of Great Horned Owl. He laid it down next to the strange apparition of things to come, made solid in this place of The Rock and The Spring, for him to see and know.
Awake now, Little Head Bob turned and looked around, stopped as he caught the light on the shiny beads on the ground below. He couldn’t think why they mattered. His brothers and sisters there on the branch roused and hooted softly, as his father flew in through the woods, breakfast in his strong talons. And he heard the wind in the trees.
Pink Floyd - Learning to Fly
note: Gi lo Sa quo hi is actually Cherokee for "Someone".