A Rude Awakening

As we climbed the steep gravelly hill, a winter’s fog created a mood of uncertainty.

The headlights emulated this and with it caught the flash of something alive, soft and expected.

It rose from below us with purpose moving up to the sky and away from crashing in to the car. It disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

As it passed the windshield it reminded me of a white flag that had been wounded by the wind.

“What was that!?” She quivered.

“I don’t know.” I said sharply.

But that was a lie.

I did know.

I knew what it was in a blink of an eye.

It was the barn owl giving me its obscure message.

I was annoyed and resented the prompting.

At this point it might of well been speaking Chinese.

I did not care to address it or decipher it. Not right now, anyway.

That time would come, I whispered to myself.

Right now I just wanted her to focus on what I was saying.

I just wanted her to be quiet and listen.

I wanted her to do as the barn owl did in its earthy life and that was to feel the life around it in silence.

It was my life too.

It was my life that was so deeply intertwined with hers that I could never set myself free without first freeing her.

It took me too long to realize this painful point and now I was desperate to fix it.

Even so, I had to be patient and listen myself to the murmurs in the wind of time for an answer of when.

Over and over again, I reminded myself of the scientist and the butterfly.

The story told of a scientist who in an effort to help the butterfly release itself from the cocoon had unwittingly destroyed it. The scientist overcome with compassion for the struggling butterfly could not see this truth of its struggle. He took the scalpel and carefully made a slit in the cocoon. He wanted to end the struggle and set the butterfly free. Pleased with himself for helping the small creature. The scientist was then shocked to see the butterfly die in front of his eyes.

For the struggle to free itself was part of the butterfly process and ultimate strength.

Now I had become the one who could decide to release the girl from her pain and conflation.

No, she could set herself free. I had come so close to interfering with that process.

Again she asked with a shivering, demanding voice. “What -was THAT!”

“It doesn’t matter now. We are almost there” I snapped.

I could no longer contain my announce.

We were less than a mile from the house on the hill.

The house that would protect her as she went through the last steps of transformation.

It was dark and lonely on top of the mountain next to a small lake that sung with life in the summer time.

Now it was silent in the dead of winter.

It was the kind of place you would find in the beginning of a horror movie, it guests destined for tragedy.

But this could be no further from the truth. This house held the secrets given to it.

It was a sanctuary.

A place to heal. A place to be awakened.

The last time I was here with my lover, grieving from a loss, so painful I thought I could not breathe.

It was then that we heard the tapping at the back door.

It was the owl. Sitting, tapping waiting to share a message from the spirit of the one I loved and missed so dearly.

She had possessed the heart shape face and looked me in the eye and I grieved no more.

“We are here.” I said as I turned to her in the passenger seat.

She was sobbing now.

All her anger had washed away with her tears.

I touched her arm gently.

“Its ok- It will be, ok- you’ll see.”

“Let us go inside now.”

She nodded with compliance.

I sighed in relief, she was here now.

Soon she would be free.

The End

http://jdhelfert.blogspot.com

copyright JD Helfert 2021