The Night Watcher vs. The Owl

Chapter 1: My Dream Home

I was called a willow child; a boy born to survive. My unique ability to always survive, when others did not, made me the willow tree of our hometown. Oliver never told me why, but I suspect it has something to do with our mother and the day I was born.

Orphaned at the age of five, the only person I had in this world was my older brother. He was a short man with a heart of gold. He was loving, caring, and my brief reminder that evil dies and heroes live forever.

He was always the highlight of my days. We fought the rains together and made our brotherhood a knight's dream. Although we had nothing to our titles, we were Sir. Ansley and Sir. Oliver, the soldiers of HOORAH!

Life wasn’t our fairy of wishes, and we never knew what it had in store for us. So, we took it one step at a time, like a traveler that knows his destination but not his path.

We never lived in a single house for too long. The owner either returned too early and chased us with a shotgun, or our landlord got too greedy and over-charged our rent.

I remember once, my brother and I lived in a mansion. A really big mansion! It was so big that it had a fountain in the living room.

Yes, you heard me!

Apparently, some wealthy family thought it was fancy to put a flowing stream of water in their living room.

Since no one was home and most of the rooms were locked, my brother and I slept on the dining tables. At the first crow of the morning rooster, we bathed in the cold fountains and cooked breakfast in the fire pits.

Unfortunately, much sooner than we had expected, the owner returned with his wife. We panicked and hid in one of the old rooms.

As the owners walked around the house and opened the dark curtains, they realized someone lived in their mansion.

"Oh dear, some tramp may have lived here in our absence," said a mid-age lady with a thick British accent.

"mmm... they must be long gone. The fire pit looks used and cold." said an older man with a light British accent.

As my brother and I hid in the old room with the spiders and geckos, we saw a shadow walk past a tiny hole on the door nob.

"Are we going to live here forever," I whispered to Oliver.

"No, I have a plan," he responded, "wait here."

He took two old bedsheets on a broken mirror frame, and made two holes on each of them.

"We are going to scare them out of the house!" he whispered with a smile.

"Take! Put this on, and when I open the door, yell, wooo, at the top of your lungs," he continued.

"Is this a good idea?" I asked him.

We locked our side eyes at a gecko on the bottom left of the room. The gecko nodded its head continuously like it was saying yes.

"Well, if Mr. gecko thinks it is, who am I to argue," he chuckled.

We grinned and wore the bedsheets.

As we opened the room doors, we yelled ghost sounds and projected directly towards the old couple. The lady first stared at us, completely paralyzed.

Then, in the most enigmatic means possible, a 110-pound lady picked up her 230-pound husband and threw him directly at us. The woman was so scared that, when she ran, it seemed like she was flying!

The old man, wounded by the throw, picked himself up and yelled, "Dorothy, you corny-faced hag, wait for me."

They ran through the front door, and we quickly locked the doors. We laughed profusely at this event that, for a moment, I forgot we were homeless and hungry. I had a euphoric experience, and I realized one crucial fact: This is home!

It is not the expensive fountain-in-the-living room brick container we dwelled in or the over-priced horse shed we were kicked out of.

No, this moment is my home; The moments I share with my brother.

So yes, I can proudly say that I had a home. It was in the warm embrace of my little big brother. He held my hands whenever I got scared and gave me his meal whenever I got greedy.

He became my first true love, my hero, and my dream home. Like magnets, we were one for another.

* * * * * * * *

Chapter 2: The Earrings

At some point, rumors were spreading of two poor brothers that broke into vacant homes. People used electric fences to guard their homes and paid the police to make frequent visits to their vacation homes when they were not in town.

It was no longer safe to live off this lifestyle. So, my brother and I decided to accept a farm job in the small town of Oscules. There were job postings at every public restroom, park, and shoe-shining corner.

In the most crooked and uneducated way possible, the job post readout "Farm Chap Nidded." It was the kind of job posting that said a million things without saying anything at all.

We applied for the job and, to no surprise, we got the job. However, the owner said I could not work on the farm, because apparently, I was so skinny that he was worried the cows would mistake me for a piece of grass. So, I was appointed as the cleaning boy for their farmhouse.

It was a good job. I got to smell good food every day. On some days, I was lucky enough to do the dishes. Every cleaner wanted to do the dishes because of the leftovers.

I also watched the master of the house build a bicycle from scratch. Every week, the master would finish his grandes roué bicyclette. Then, he would destroy it in a rage and rebuild it again, and every week, I would say to myself,

"Boredom can make a man do stupid things."

One faithful day, the master caught me lurking at the door. My sanguine bony hands leaned on the fusty wooden door with my lower lips sluggishly descending towards the earth.

"hey there, skinny," the master said to me

He was an old agile man with a loud crooked voice. His red saggy eyes were displeasing to watch. His plumb body, tiny legs, and big feet gave him a cartoonery figure.

His amputated right index finger was the highlight of his body. The chefs joked about it all the time. Some said he ate his index finger, while others believed it just packed its bags and luggage, and left him.

To be honest, the latter sounds more true than the former.

"Come closer, let me show you what I am doing." He continued

So, I sluggishly approached him. My heart was beating heavily and every molecule in the room screamed “no.”

"See..." he said.

"That there is what we call a spoke," he whispered it to my left ear.

I felt his hands slowly descend from my neck to my lower back. But I chose not to pull away.

"Maybe, rich old people are touchy in nature," I thought in my mind.

My brother walked in with a quarter loaf of bread in his hands.

"Ansley!" he yelled, "I have been looking for you." My brother ran towards me and pulled me away with force. The master and Oliver locked eyes for thirty seconds as though they were ready to fight.

"Good day to you Sire," my brother nodded his head, and we slowly left the room.

It is 1:00 AM the next day.

"WHO STOLE MY DAUGHTER'S EARRINGS?" The master yelled as he barged into the worker's quarters.

"I SAID, WHICH OF YOU SMELLY THINGAMABOB THIEVES STOLE MY DAUGHTERS EARRINGS?"

His loud crooked voice woke everybody. We were told to line up in the living rooms while the master's son searched our things. The master's daughter was in the kitchen crying heavily. Her au pair attempted to comfort her but could not succeed. Everyone was frightened and bowed their heads to avoid eye contact with the angry fool.

His son, minutes after, walked in with a white cotton bag.

"Here are the earrings, father. I found them in this bag."

The master's son looked at his father's eyes with a desperate need for accolades. "Whoever took the earrings tried to hide it in a small shoe in this bag," he continued.

"Who owns this bag?" the master said.

He walked past my brother and me like he did not know the bag belonged to us.

"It is mine, Sire." the gardener responded. Mr. Whitman, the gardener, was a kind man. He was an old majestic soul with a beautiful smile. He was a mother hen that felt the need to save everyone.

He was trafficked from an African country during the colonial era. No one knew where because he refused to share. He felt that by keeping his tribe a secret, he could save them from future slavery.

So, to whoever is reading this, remember Mr. Willy Whitman! Remember that although evil, like me, exists, there is always good out there.

The master slapped Mr. Whitman heavily and squeezed his top.

"The next time you try to be a hero. I will feed you to the pigs." the master yelled, "You fool!"

Then, without any hesitation, he walked directly towards my brother and said, "this is yours, isn't it?"

My brother looked up at him with an angry face. The housemaster punched him on the stomach and dragged him to the farm shed at the back.

All I heard after that were the painful cries of my brother, begging him to stop. It soured my heart and pierced my soul to hear Oliver being punished for something he did not do.

With red anger, I ran into the shed and was heartbroken at what I saw.

I saw my big brother lying on a pile of horse hay, clothed in his blood. His back was marked with open wounds, and his left eye was blinking repeatedly like he had lost control of them.

The master and his son stood beside his body with a whip on their hands. I suspected they took turns because they were both covered in his blood.

Without any hesitation or consideration, I took out the revolver I stole from the master's shoebox, cocked the hammer, and shot him and his son. I only remember shooting them once. But, I was later told that I shot the master four times and his son twice.

Mucus drained from my nose and tears wetted my clothes. I kneeled close to my brother's body and cried out

"Oliver, Oliver, Oliver, please don't leave me."

He neither moved a muscle nor said a word. I felt cold, and my hands were shaking heavily. So, I stretched his hands around me to feel one last warm embrace from him.

At that very moment, my evil was born.

* * * * * * * *

Chapter 3: The Witness

Twenty years later, I became a predator of the night, and every year at 1:00 AM, I punished an evil wealthy family.

First, I shot the father four times and the son twice. Then, I took the remaining family members to the kitchen and gave them a quiet death.

I was a simple salesman in the day and a night watcher in the night. Deep down, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but Oliver was innocent. Until someone cleared his name, I had no intentions of stopping.

However, yesterday, I got caught.

Yesterday, I chose to punish the Woodbridge family. I chose them because one of their workers was found dead by the lake. Rumors were spreading that the maid was killed by the house mistress after being raped by Mr. Woodbridge. So, I purified the air and saved the earth from another monster lineage.

After the job, I strolled towards the lake to wash my bloody clothes.

It was a warm summer evening. The frogs were singing so beautifully and the trees were dancing in perfect harmony. The fishes rose their heads to the top of the lake to breathe nature's purest air, and the phantom dweller, trapped by her violent death, whispered, “thank you,” to the quiet night.

As I submerged my clothes into the lake, I saw it. The witness to my crime. The only soul to have ever caught me red-handed. It stood still and locked its eyes on him. It glowed all white like a messenger from the heavens.

From afar, it seemed like a mere spectator of the night but I knew it was something more than that. Its steadiness on the branch was apathetic, yet, its dark bizarre eyes were subjectively judgmental.

Like a mermaid, it was half human-half animal. Its human side was a judge, ready to lay its verdict, and its animal side was a hungry creature looking for its next meal.

We glared and stared at each other, waiting to see who made the first move. Soon, seconds turned into minutes, and minutes became hours.

I came closer to ask of its name. But it flapped its wings as though it was ready to fight.

"Oliver was always ready to fight."

Suddenly, I felt sorrow dribble down my lungs, and tears sprung from my wounded eyes. We both knew that the evil I committed had fogged the night.

"I had to, you know," I yelled to the quiet nights, hoping it would empathize with me.

"They hurt him," I continued.

"They hurt Oliver. It is not my fault."

"THEY HURT OLIVER."

"IT IS NOT... MY FAULT," I yelled.

I slammed my head to the ground and cried like a child. I shivered and cried out Oliver's name.

For so long, I ran away from the night of my brother's death. But there it was, right in front of me, as a barn owl.

Its pale black eyes looked deep into my dark soul. Its white body reminded me of the innocent child I once was: The willow boy, a member of the soldiers of Hoorah!

It never flew away.

It stared and judged my soul. Right there, in the thick dark forest, it became a prosecutor of the night. A witness to my crime. A pending trial between a night watcher and a barn owl.

* * * * * * * *

If you enjoyed this story, here is a puzzle for you to solve: who actually stole the earrings?

Author’s comment: I really enjoyed writing this story and I hope you enjoyed it too! Just being a writer on vocal has improved my writing and for that I am grateful!