The fabled Ms Owl

There is never much to say at night. That's because of the Jungle rule set 2534 million years ago.

Just after sunset, everything turns slowly and steadily towards silence. Because if it doesn't then something terrible will happen in the Jungle.

Hush is the word. Hush, says the mother to the child as the sun begins to set. Hush, says the Tree to the squirrels as the north winds glide in cooler. For hush, is the favourite word of Mr Silence.

Hush was very difficult to teach anybody in those days of yore. For no one ever slept before. No one knew what was sleep.

The excitement of trying on the colours of life was too much until everyone burnt out. Tiger began to meow instead of growling. Parakeets began to cackle instead of screech. Elephant began to squeal instead of bellowing. Insects began to roar instead of buzzing. They were all getting it wrong.

That's when Mr Silence was outsourced from the outer rims of the galaxy to bring back harmony, symphony even.

Everyone agreed to the new rules of "hush" except one.

Things went about their business as usual only slower, quieter. Birds simply have to stop chirping, trees keep but a gentle whisper of leaves to each other. Animals slither and glide, scamper and hide, for Mr Silence will have no one, absolutely no one cause any disturbance. But for one exception.

Lady Night is approaching as the footsteps of the evening sunlight disappear into the horizon. She may be wearing her starry veil, only if she decides to wear her full moon halo crown tonight. Or if She's in the mood to brood over the streams She will arrive without notice.

***

The one who was exempt from the new rule was a distant cousin of Lady Night. You see, they both slept through the day and stayed up all night. Lady Night was free to roam on accord of her high status. However, her distant cousin was wont to keep vigil. This one simply loved staring about and noticing anything that moved.

Concurrently the cousin had developed a neck that could rotate 360 degrees for the creatures roamed about too fast, too furious all over the Jungle. Up and down, hither and thither, high and low, under and above, all creatures covered every square space that was possible to get mobile in. Just because the fever of being alive was rising higher and higher in every creature's body and mind.

Nobody had even heard of "sleep" up until that year, some two and a half million years ago. Obviously, there was no such thing as moon or stars either. The sun shone all day and the "day" is all anyone knew.

Can you imagine, it was "day" all the time.

It was the job of Mr Silence to invent new ways to create order and balance.

Lady Night was summoned from the Black Hole World he frequented to get his regular fix of a "warp shot". Mr Silence needed to feel enough disorientation to experience his core strength - soundlessness. There was too much sound in this part of the cosmos, what with all the whirling and swirling of planets and stars. The whizzing and fizzing of meteors and asteroids. So it was the Black Hole 55 where he met the mysterious Lady Night and they fell in love instantly. Their needs and goals match elegantly at first sight.

She followed him and he followed Her everywhere they were welcomed and invited, which was seldom.

For the world was all new and all, and all creatures, all life-breathing things, even the trees and grasses, flowers and hills, stones and pebbles were too busy, indeed very busy dancing and singing the songs that life ceaselessly orchestrated in one long continuous day.

Now you and I would think that Mr Silence came in with Lady Night and everything may have changed instantly.

But that is not how things occurred those many million years ago.

In that day (for it was one continuous one) everyone had a say in the matter of any change whatsoever.

Everyone worked in a single rhythm creating anything that needed to be created. For example, if there was to be rain, then the sun, the trees, along with the great lakes and the birds and animals would conspire to do their bit in facilitating the course of vapour from the sun's heat upon the great lakes, and the waters held in the flesh of tree leaves, accompanied by the merrymaking sounds of the birds and animals, (all for the purpose of amusement), then turn into soft floating clouds and at a certain moment, when the peacock unfurled its diamond crusted tail and danced like there was no tomorrow, which indeed, there never was, that's when the rain would pour down like a heavenly greeting to the earth.

Everything would only then be permitted to turn to green from yellow or brown.

So when Mr Silence and Lady Night signed up for this strange new job which was to harmonize everyone and everything to match the frequency of the Galaxy which had slowed down for reasons elaborated in the next story, they had to figure out how to sensitize themselves to the general population. How to appear on the consciousness radar of the life-holding and moulding creatures on the Blue Dot Planet. For they knew, what we don't even know about, we cannot see or recognize and hence it cannot become real enough to participate in, respond and live with.

Since no one knew who these two are, none knew what they are or if they were at all.

Hence the clever move by Mr Silence to recruit his distant cousin Ms Owl.

Incidentally, Owl was a bird and everyone on the Blue Dot Planet knew what a bird is. So they were easily able to relate to her presence without any eyebrows being raised. They thought this was just another ew species of flying-life-creatures as had been many times before.

So Ms Owl came on the scene and perched upon a strong thick branch that had a hollow in the bark, She looked confidently authoritative and blended right in.

Now remember everyone and everything already had its own magic so it was expected that Ms Owl would have come with her own special brand of magic.

Her magic was to "hoot", that's all, just a simple, sonorous, resounding hoot.

And here's what her magic "hoot" could do-

The sound of her hoot was pitched perfectly to send long waves into rings of drowsiness into the inner ears of all creatures, moving or immobile. Once these low sound frequency rings reached inside they would change the wavelength of all other sounds entering the ears of every single creature and lengthen them, such that it would affect the whole body's response rate to the thoughts and emotions. Everyone would begin to slow down.

And here on the Blue Dot too, everyone slowed down.

The side effect was "drowsiness". A strange new feeling that made everyone want to sit, even get horizontal and simply do less and less till they felt they could do nothing anymore.

Digging burrows became fashionable back then, as creatures began to feel the need to stay warm and cosy and cuddly and well, simply still. It's easy to not want to move when you are cushioned with all that loam and sand around you.

Instinct driven, innocently, all creatures big and small, mobile and immobile succumbed to the innocuous magic spell of the hooter. The hooter enjoyed the power she could have over life in this region of the cosmos and grew some very fancy ear tufts and bristles and eyebrows. A grizzly shriveled owl from the nether regions now began to have a regal, authoritative personality, staying perched ever so surely upon her favourite tree, further perfecting her body language and oiling the creaky neck to rotate periodically.

You see that's how slowly and gradually, creatures all big and small, mobile and immobile began to spend so much more time in the company of the dark cool parts of their own bodies, which lay behind their eyelids. The darkness behind their eyelids, they noticed only when they finally learnt to keep eyes shut for more than the usual blinking time.

Ms Owl on the other hand could not hoot for 12 hours as she had to build up the air in her lungs all that while and then hoot for the following 12 hours. That's just how it was.

In the hours that she could enjoy her own expert hooting she again needed to time it to every third breathe so as to not burn herself out.

And thankfully, above all things, she simply loved hooting. So she did it with total attention and dedication.

This precisely timed hooting of Ms Owl simply reminded all creatures big and small, mobile and immobile that it was indeed very sweet to slow down, lay down, cuddle, squeeze and snore. How and when did they learn to dream is a matter, discussed at great length in the third story.

It was all an elegant approach of inducing a gentle repetitive habit and soon enough everyone could relate very easily to Ms Night as she roamed about their waking grounds, for now, they knew what darkness looked like. They could give it a name, or did it all come with an inbuilt name. I can't recall. Excuse me for my dementia.

It was all the time they spent staring at the inside of their eyelids that taught them about darkness and the cool rest it brought.

Though frankly, before all these new and inconspicuous changes occurred, they had all the rest they needed within their "day" filled with non-stop activity itself, however, they fondly enjoyed the new flavour of rest that was brought about by their time spent with stuff behind their eyelids too

Novelty, was the spice of all things just as much a million years before so it any change was welcome.

One must tip one's hat off to Mr Night to curate a masterful introduction of himself in this way to the blue world in this part of the cosmos.

Not only did he blend right in and become part of the scene, but he brought his family along to the new property too - Ms Night and cousin Owl. There were others that came in later, like my favourites - the clan of stars and Mr Moon but again, that is in a fourth story for it needs much elaboration.

Ms Owl continues to enjoy life with Ms Night in Mr Silence's presence, spreading his employer's kind word(lessness) ever since.

*

Ms Owl remained part of the new active-passive as opposed to the former active-active state of being for all creatures big and small, mobile and immobile for the following millions of years and grew accustomed to watching over young chicks and cubs and all manner of growth around her.

Hence she never adapted to the wildish side of her nature, although some of her offspring did.

This one species a semi-domestic lifestyle and so sometime in the following million years this same Owl chose the barn and began to be referred to as the Barn Owl.

Hoot!