Ever The Night Owl

It's an early morning at the beginning of spring when I awake, after tossing and turning from the nightmares of winter. The world outside is thawing, greenery protruding from the icy remainders of the prior season, but the sky has not yet cleared from the remaining storms and threat of heavy snowfall.

I rub my eyes and gather my strength for the day ahead. As I step outside for a cigarette, I imagine the smoke travelling upwards and expanding the ash grey clouds already blanketing the sky. Awareness of the toxicity entering my lungs, I sigh into the crisp morning air and retreat indoors.

Returning the cigarettes to their home in my bedroom, I consider breaking the habit altogether, but I feel that it isn't the right time. Reflecting on the winter does not bring memories of holiday cheer and family gatherings, but instead of the news I received on Christmas Eve.

The holidays had quickly spiralled into a season of grief, and I carried it with me into the new year. Michael and I were close in our teenage years, spending time together over Skype and laughing late into the night as we lost track of time. I'm ashamed to admit that after some time apart, Michael's laugh began to recede from the forefront of my mind. As soon as the news broke on Christmas Eve, it was the first thing to return, and guilt arrived quickly thereafter. All I wanted for Christmas was the opportunity to hear his precious laugh one last time.

I hadn't spoken to Michael for a few months at the time of his passing. Our last messages were ones of hope, and hearing him say he was happier than ever and had overcome his struggles filled me with pride, and I expressed my joy and hope for it to continue for him. He deserved nothing but the best.

Reflecting begins to fill my eyes with tears, and I attempt to shake the memories from my head and pull myself together for the day ahead. My days have been spent in isolation lately, and I'm okay with that. I convince myself that it's for the best that I have time alone, and I tell myself that I'll use this time to focus on recovery.

I fix myself a cup of coffee, oversweetened to the point it hardly qualified as coffee anymore, and sit down at my desk with a book that I've been meaning to read for months. Dusting off the cover, I feel a semblance of guilt for letting it sit untouched for so long, but focus has been more difficult to come by lately and I have neglected trying to recover it.

The world around me is struggling alongside me, and being bombarded with negativity in the news the moment you wake up every morning is destined to set one up to fail. Good news seems few and far between, and the once important hobbies I held dear to my heart began to drift away as my thoughts began to tangle into an endless knot of negativity. I find myself wondering if the entanglement will continue to expand rather than unravelling altogether.

I take a deep breath, and tell myself that today I will allow myself to indulge in comfort, and I hope that I can regain the comfort the pages of an untouched novel used to bring me. Taking in the scent of ink on paper, I dive in.

Hours later, I realize I have succeeded as my eyes drift to the clock. I feel a sense of nostalgia as I become aware of my focus and enjoyment of the novel. It reminds me of being a child, huddled in bed under zebra-print sheets, easily grinding through a book of five hundred pages in just a few hours.

I reflect on the memory of a bedroom overwhelmed by pink and green, filled to the brim with everything I loved. Stuffed animals lining every corner and crease, children's drawings and self-invented comics spilling out of desk drawers, my favourite book series overloading bookshelves and claiming any empty space they could occupy amongst the clutter. Despite the mess, it was mine, and it was my favourite place.

Reflection brings me back to the memory of Michael and the joy I felt spending our nights together, and the guilt returns as quickly as a wave crashing into shore. The day is gone, and I had spent it without his presence occupying my thoughts. The weight feels as though it's crushing me, and struggling to breathe, I stumble to my feet and throw on my tattered old coat.

I step outside into the crisp spring air, but the night has brought with it a biting chill that works it's way through the fabric of my jacket and into my spine. Despite the discomfort, I'm grateful to be feeling something physical, and I impulsively take off from the front step and sprint farther into the darkness.

I approach the woods a fair distance away from the cozy and quiet neighbourhood I call my home. I slow my pace, my lungs burning from the frozen air. Hesitant, I glance back towards home. Fading into the distance are the warm lights of the street, and the community huddled with their families indoors, away from the cold. I imagine them smiling and laughing with their families as the day comes to a close, saying their goodnights to their little ones and beloved pets and preparing to live another peaceful day tomorrow. I wonder what it would be like to live a life like that, but it seems unreachable.

Abruptly, I spin back towards the darkness of the woods, and impulsively set foot inside. There's not a trail to be found as I stumble between splintered bark and prickly shrubbery. I have no destination, and I am unaware that the only thing I am running from is myself.

My foot catches a tree branch and I am knocked out of my stupor, my hands flailing as I abruptly approach the packed dirt below me.

As I examine the scrapes and splinters I had unfortunately received during my fall, I pull myself to my knees and gain awareness of where I am. I had been flung from my state of dissociation and back into reality, and my efforts to escape myself had only lead me deeper into a trap of guilt and despair.

Suddenly, the tears begin again and I am at their mercy. They grow in strength, and I find myself sobbing on the hard forest floor. Ever since Michael's passing, I had found myself running, but never knowing what from, until this moment on the cold dirt blanketed by stones and cracked tree branches.

I couldn't run from the guilt and despair I had carried with me, and it began to crush me as I curled up into a ball and allowed myself to feel. The scrapes on my hand could never sting as badly as the realization.

My mind overflows with thoughts of Michael, and their strength pulls them from my mind and out into the clear air of the forest. I can barely form a sentence through my heaving sobs, but I call out for him as if he could hear me somewhere out there amongst the trees. I beg him to come back, and desperately blurt out apologies as if they'll hold enough power to return his physical being to the earth alongside me.

I roll onto my back and stare up through the cracks in the foliage, searching for stars while debating following him into the dark. I didn't want him to be alone out there, and I would do anything to hear his laugh again. Nothing could ever compare.

The forest seems to close in around me as I fall apart in it's arms. Blinking through tears, I feel as though I'm being swallowed whole, and it doesn't hurt nearly as much as the thought of returning home alone. I wonder how long I can remain here in the cold before it overtakes me, and I sink into the ground.

My vision is spinning as much as my mind as I fight to lock eyes with the stars through the darkness of the trees. My eyes catch onto a glow in the corner of my vision, and I latch onto it through the blur.

It didn't appear to be a star or the glow of the moon, and I gather myself enough to focus harder.

I come to the realization that I wasn't alone after all.

Watching me silently from a towering branch in the shadows is a barn owl, unmoving.

I pull myself up from the ground to get a better look, struggling with the numbness the cold has brought to my bones. I predict that the snapping of the branches under my weight will frighten the owl, but it retains it's perch in the trees and continues gazing down at me. I find myself entranced.

We hold each other's gaze for a moment, before I hear the owl shuffle and take flight. I follow it's movement, expecting it to vanish into the night, but it simply flies towards the trees behind me and a branch creaks as it finds a new place to land. At this moment, nothing could prevent me from following it.

I keep my focus on the owl and continue to trip and stumble my way through the trees until I have a clear view of it once again. It glances at me briefly with it's wide, dark eyes, before taking off farther away, and I commit to it's journey. I follow the owl's path as it appears to wait for me to retrieve the sight of it again.

I lose track of my surroundings as I focus for the first time in what seems like ages, and I watch the owl as it embarks on one final flight into the night. I fear that I've lost track of the creature before I realize I have made my way to the edge of the woods, and the owl had taken flight back towards the light of the neighbourhood in the distance.

My mind begins to return to reality, though I cannot shake the feeling that the creature was beckoning me to return to the safety and warmth of my bedroom, away from the darkness and biting air. I afford myself the opportunity to board this train of thought, and my mind drifts back to Michael and our late nights filled with laughter and endless inside jokes.

Michael was never a morning person, and I shared that experience with him. We found our peace in the night and the quiet of the world, listening to nothing but each other and dismissing the remnants of the day.

Michael, ever the night owl, but always the light guiding me home.