An Evening Stroll

Humans think they know the sound of an owl. That classic, onomatopoeic "Who, who?" But that is the kind of thought that only animals past a certain size, with the privilege of enough sheer mass might have. You see, owls are killing machines. They have tons of little adaptations that make them perfect for murder. If you are ever lucky, or, perhaps, unlucky enough to see an owl up close, take a look at their wings. You might imagine you know what an owls wings look like. You've seen enough daytime birds, and an owl is, after all, just another bird. But owl wings are different. Where a hawk or a cardinal will have smooth wings, almost reminiscent of something manufactured and perfect, owls have ratty, uneven wings. Like the ends of a frayed piece of rope. It seems out of place, but it serves a very real purpose. As a bird flies, the air slides over its wings in two sheets of air, one over the top and one over the bottom. On those smooth winged, daytime birds, those sheets of air come back together on the far side of the wing and make a whistling sound. A sound that a sharp eared animal might hear. But with an owl, all those little tufts, those feathers that seem so out of place on a cursory examination, those feathers disturb the air flow just enough. They form a thousand little vortices such that there aren't two large sheets coming together on the trailing edge of the wing, but countless little cominglings of air in countless different directions that, all told, do a rather neat job of cancelling each other out. To even the sharpest eared prey animal, this means that where a diving hawk sounds like a brief scream that you might, just might be able to dodge, an owl sounds like the barest whisper, if you can even hear it over the sound of the wind. So, in a very real sense, in some ways, the true sound of an owl is silence.

As much as all of this may have mattered to the field mouse, he didn't have time to think it. It was one of those things, that had it crossed his mind, he surely would have thought. But now, in this moment, he just wanted to make it home before the sun finished setting. He'd journeyed further afield today than he did normally, and now, in the waning light of late afternoon, the path twisted and turned in ways that seemed wholly unfamiliar. No landmarks could he recognize, no familiar scents or sounds, and, with a sinking feeling, he worried that he had made a wrong turn. That uncertain worry gave way to the certainty that he would not be home in time. The dread that between him and the cold, terrible darkness there would be no solid door, no warming fire. And with that thought, the sun sank behind the horizon.

He hurried across the forest floor, fretting and worrying, the tip of his nose twitching in the cold air. It had been dark for a while now, and he wasn't dead yet. Better, he finally knew where he was. He hadn't made a wrong turn after all, though he'd lost valuable time in second guessing himself. Soon, soon enough he would be inside his home, and, once the draining of the adrenaline left his body numb and exhausted, he would collapse into his bed and sleep deeper than he had ever before. The following night, or the night after, perhaps, he would lie awake and consider all the ways he had messed up, the anxiety and shame growing until they'd nearly eclipse his current emotions. But on this night, he would sleep the sleep of the survivor. Still, that required that he reach home. With renewed vigor, he put his head down and hurried onward.

He never heard it. Instead, it was the faintest of smells, pure luck with the wind changing direction at just the right moment. Before his mind had even registered the smell, instinct had thrown him to the side. Talons raked his left thigh, nearly closed on his tail. Feathers brushed his head as he dove, and it was then it was past him, gone. Gray feathers blending perfectly into the dark, so perfectly that it had seemed nearly invisible on top of the silence. Invisible except for the eyes. He had seen those two huge, yellow eyes for the barest fraction of a second as they had passed overhead. Fear flooded through his body, settled like a weight in his stomach. He pushed himself to his feet, and, scrambling, began to run. Cursing each faltering step, each wasted fraction of a second. Trying to go just. A. Little. Faster. And then, in front of him, he saw them again. Those eyes diving right towards him. In that moment, he did a very un-mouselike thing. Instead of diving to the side again, which could never have worked a second time, he grabbed a twig off the path and instead dove forwards, towards the eyes, arm extended in front of him like a fencer, a perfect flying lunge. The stick struck true, pushing his arm back before giving way with a sickening pop, his hand wet with a sudden outwelling of liquid. And then he was hit with a crushing, speeding weight that bowled over and tossed down the path.

Finally, for the first time, he heard the owl. Not the "who, who?" we might recognize, nor the sound of flapping wings, but a scream. A long, piercing sound that turned the blood in his veins straight to ice. Once more, he found himself pushing himself to his feet, stumbling. His thigh burned, blood flowing freely from the cuts there. His ankle had been twisted in the collision, but some distant part of himself recognized that he had come out of the collision remarkably unscathed. The larger part of himself was consumed by one, simple thought. RUN. Around him, he could feel the owl thrashing, wings beating against the ground as it continued to scream. He edged away, trying to stay quiet, barely holding back his own whimpers as the wings and talons narrowly missed him several times. And then he was out, away from the owl, taking off once more in a painful half run, half shuffle. The sounds of the owl faded behind him, but that brought him no comfort. The natural sound of an owl, after all, is silence. But, after what seemed an eternity, he came to his door. Fumbling, shaking hands barely managed to get the key in the lock. And then he was inside. The fire had burned low in the hearth, just a few embers, really, but he hurried to stoke it, to banish the shadows from his room. He sank, shaking, into his armchair. He had survived, and would not take such a far journey from his home again at any point in the foreseeable future. Distantly, some part of himself reflected on the experience. The true sound of an owl, he decided, was terror.