A Bad Omen

A three-day excursion in the woods with some friends and nothing to worry about sounded like a novel idyll, and so it was decided. The four of us would start leaving at 6:00 in the morning.

6:00 in the morning found me groaning at the sound of the alarm that did not work for its intent. I tapped snooze and tried to go back to sleep before my phone startled me again, except that this ring was not an alarm; but a phone call. It’s Osman…

“Yyyo”, I groan in my deep husky morning voice. Why can’t I always sound like that?

“Yyyo. Sooo, are you ready?”

“Uuuh, not really.”

“Well get ready cuz I’m picking you up first.”

“Aight yo. How long before you get here?”

“Uuuh,’bout 15 minutes.”

“Ight yo…”

“Ight peace…”

I laid in bed, still half asleep. My bags are ready, but I’m not. About six minutes before I’m supposed to get picked up, I roll out of bed, take a quick rinse and do all the other things that would constitute a morning routine, and await him as I verify that proper clothing, toothbrush, sandals, and other paraphernalia are packed. He picks me up, we go scoop the others, and we are on our way to Redwood National Park, three hours away by drive. Much of that time was spent listening to music and engaging in idle discussion that sounded something like this:

“I went La Fiesta Diner yesterday. The food tasted pretty bad, but I did not want to throw it out because it would have been a waste.”

“That’s formidable.”

“Wrong word buddy…”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t use “formidable” to describe that.”

“Yea I can. Formidable denotes respect.”

“Yeah, but its respect associated with fear. It’s like when you hear someone say, “he’s a formidable opponent”. They mean he’s an opponent worthy of respect due to what he is capable of.”

“True.”

“Yea, it can be used like that, but formidable is also synonymous to worthy and estimable, and can be used in the positive sense.”

“Nope, you’re wrong.”

This conversation goes on for a bit, while Mark is in the back with his AirPods in his ears, completely zoned out to Pop Smoke, or Young MA, or whatever he usually listens to. He could care less about word vocabulary. I, on the other hand, couldn’t care more. I was planning to take an exam that tested difficult vocabulary, and I was feeling hot after learning some words.

As we approached our destination, the conversation managed to become more eerie, as we started to discuss all the wrong things that could happen during our stay in the woods.

“Yo any chance we’ll see wild animals?”, Brahim asks.

“Iono, but I’ll say this, if we see a bear, I’m out.”, was Mark’s reply

“Dude, if you run from a bear, you will get caught. In any case, I searched up about it, and bear sightings are not all that common if we settle at the right place, and even if we see one, the odds that they will attack us are pretty low. The woods are marked with no-go regions so we should be fine.” I remarked

“I actually brought bear repellant.”, said Osman. “You never know. Better safe than sorry.”

“Smart.”

We arrived at our designated spot, and not a moment too soon, as a barn owl arrested our attention briefly before taking off.

“You guys know what that was right?” Brahim inquires.

“Looked like an owl. Weird, I thought owls were supposed to be bigger than that.”, I responded.

“That was a barn owl. I heard that sighting a barn owl is a bad omen.”

“And where did you hear that from? Please don’t tell me you believe that?”, says Mark.

“I didn’t say that I believe it, I’m just making mention of it is all.”

‘Twas a nice-looking bird.” says Osman.

“Yeah, I dunno how an aesthetically pleasing bird like such can be associated with a bad omen.”, I said.

“What’s ast-et-icsly?”, questioned Mark.

“It means nice to look at.”, Osman replied.

“Oh my God can’t you just say that? Mad dumb.” said Mark.

If barn owls are indeed a bad omen, then it was an intimation of what was to come.

The camp site was truly something to behold. Us city-dwellers were not accustomed to trees so tall, so that was something. We unpacked, set up camp, and enjoyed some prepacked meat that I made for everyone while we engaged in idle conversation. Unfortunately with Mark, half of the conversations with him tend to be ego-driven. I’ll save you the nonsense discussion that I did not bother to engage in, nor did Osman. However, it did compel Mark to throw one of his half-eaten morsels of meat out in the open as far as he could.

“Dude!?”, I exclaimed.

“What?” He replied

“We’re in open nature, you can’t be throwing food out here like that. You’ll attract animals”, I told him.

“Yo stop crying, nothing will happen”, he said.

“Did you at least eat all of the meat before you threw it? Like, was it all bone?”

“Uh, nah.”

“Oh my God”, I sighed.

“Can anyone see where it went at least?” Osman asked.

“Nope”

“Nah”

“Not really”

“Ok, well the review says that bear sightings are pretty rare anyways, so the odds are in our favor here. Please, just no one throw anything else out like that. We didn’t bring the garbage bags for no reason”, I said.

Following this, we decided to explore the region, intending to fulfill the purposes we came here for. Naturally, as rash young adults ever so curious about our situation, we decided to venture into the areas that were marked as cautionary. Not much came out of it as we grew impatient after a few minutes of finding nothing interesting. Fast forward to nightfall…

“Yo, we should start heading back before it gets too dark”, I suggested.

They all agreed.

We retired to the tent for the night, relieved to take a much-needed rest, and excited for the following day that would not be. As we started to doze off, the leaves started making a faint, distant, rustling sound.

“Guys? Did you hear that?”, I said.

“Here what”? Mark asked.

“The leaves are making a sound”, I said.

Osman and Brahim start to wake up…

“Can you guys kindly shut up; I’m trying to sleep.”, Osman grumbles.

“Word yo stop being paranoid.”, Mark says. “It’s probably the wind.”

“If it’s the wind, then why isn’t the tent moving?” Plus, the leaves are starting to make a crunching sound, so that means pressure is being applied.

“Ight go check.”, Mark says.

“What? Ight but come with me.”, I replied.

“Nah.”, he says.

“Dude, take Osman’s bear repellant just in case and let’s make sure we’re not being stalked. The car is right there. Even if something pernicious is out there, we’ll have time to escape.”

“Ugh, ight yo. Osman give Mak your car keys.”

“Nah, I’ll take the car keys and go with Brahim into the car this way if there is danger, we are ready to take off. You and Mak go inspect” Osman replies.

“Ok.”

At this point, the leaves stop making noise, but we decided to take our precautions anyhow. About thirty seconds after Brahim and Osman get in the car, they take off, seemingly hurriedly, as if they panicked. At this point, Mark and I have not seen anything, but can feel that we are being stalked, so we turn the flashlight on, although initially reluctant to do so due to the potential undue attention it would garner. And not a moment too soon, because as I turn it on, I see a black bear before us, and it looked like he wanted trouble. Now, the normal reaction upon sighting such a thing is to take off, but that’s not what I did. Can’t say the same for Mark, because he was gone, like said he would be. The exigent situation galvanized him to sprint to nowhere. I ineffectually called out to him not to react, but I’m sure he couldn’t hear me. His fight or flight response was in full gear. And in any case, it wouldn’t matter, because the bear took off in hot pursuit. He had no choice now but to run.

The car was nowhere in sight, and here is a medium sized black bear chasing Mark, and gaining on him, while I follow behind. The blinding darkness, the branches masked by the darkness, and the pumping adrenaline proved to be too much for Mark to handle, and he trips over a branch and violently meets the ground, losing his grip on the bear repellant in his hand. As I approach the scene, I panic, on one hand, not wanting to get close to the bear before he starts to attack me, and on the other hand fearful of what may become of Mark if I don’t help somehow, who, at this point is being handled violently by the bear, claws tearing clothing and skin, and just being thrashed about while he’s yelling expletives. I grab the bear repellant, realizing that Mark won’t be able to take much more of this, and spray the bear in one eye, causing him to stumble, backwards before thrashing about in agony, and giving us time to escape. I spray some more repellant in the other eye in order to totally obstruct his vision so that he has no chance of following us for a while. Mark was injured pretty badly so we could not take off together, but he was healthy enough to limp with me. Thankfully, he did not make it far from the road by our camp from where he first took off. As we approached the road, a familiar 2003 Toyota sedan pulls up, with Osman and Brahim.

“Oh man, what happened to Mark?” said Brahim

I didn’t even bother responding to that question.

I helped sit Mark down, and we hurried to gather our stuff from the camp, before taking off to the closest hospital that we could find.

“Why did you guys just take off like that?”, I said. “You could have said something.”

“My bad. I panicked. Wasn’t thinking straight.”, was Osman’s only reply.

Yeah, barn owls may be a bad omen.

Or maybe Mark should not have chucked the meat.

What do you think?