A New Friend On A Silent Night

It had been quiet for too long. Melody ran her fingers through her shoulder-length chocolate brown curls. She paused, as her thumb ring had gotten caught in her hair. "Why do I do this to myself," she mutters as she pulls her hair out of her ring and attempts to smooth it back into place. It's still silent in the apartment. It was the type of quiet that unnerves you, that silence you can 'cut with a knife'.

"I'm overthinking the quiet now? Is my anxiety getting worse?"

Melody got out of bed and tip-toed to the bathroom. As she closed the door and turned on the lights, she looked at herself in the mirror. She looked tired, and had a couple zits beginning to take hold on her forehead. There was one piece of hair, frazzled and frayed, sticking out from the rest. Undoubtedly the piece that had gotten caught in her ring just moments ago. Melody reached for her anti-anxiety medication, which had conveniently been left out by the sink. She rolls the pill bottle in her fingers. "No, I definitely took this earlier," she decides as she sets it on the counter. The silence was now ringing in her ears.

Melody has a 1-bedroom apartment on the top floor of an old century home in Downtown Toronto. The house was built in the 1880s. It had a red brick, vine-covered exterior, with exposed brick continuing inside. The brick is what sold Melody on the apartment. It was very hipster and trendy in 2018, when she moved in.

However an old house has it's tricks. The landlord had kept the majority of things pretty up to date, but things like electricity and piping could only be updated to an extent. This meant there were a lot of creaks, dull bangs, and echoes at all times of day. Melody could tell when someone in a lower unit turned their dryer on. She could feel it when someone slams the front door. The pipes in her bedroom whistled whenever her neighbour below had a shower.

And then there were the sounds her apartment makes. The loud whirring of the water heater. The vine branches scratching on the pocket window above the kitchen sink. The dripping tap in the bathtub. Oddly enough, these sounds comforted Melody. Similar to white noise, it made her feel less alone.

It had been silent for far too long.

An intense feeling of dread began growing from Melody's chest. She leaned back to straighten her posture as a crisp chill stiffened her spine. Melody made her way from the bathroom to the kitchen. Pausing quickly to pull the kettle from its shelf, she scurried over to the kitchen sink. Melody set the kettle down on the counter and began to run the water. Eventually, she would grab the kettle and hold it under the tap, the first step towards getting herself a cup of tea to calm her uneasiness. But first, she looked straight ahead and out the window.

It was dark. Too dark. Melody leaned closer to the window. As she focused her eyes beyond the reflection of her kitchen lights, she could see some white speckles nestled within the leaves of the bushy vines outside her window. Her eyes widened with the realization the speckles were a characteristic of dark brown feathers, which were rustling and shifting as the creature began to move.

The creature turned its head 180 degrees, and Melody found herself looking at a pale white face with two, perfectly circular, black eyes looking back at her. Melody gasped loudly, and jolted three steps back from the sink.

Blankly staring at her, happily perched on a vine branch, was a big barn owl with colouring a little darker than most. "Well, that explains why the branch hasn't been tapping the window tonight," Melody thought to herself, feeling some of her uneasiness subside.

Melody leaned forward and turned the tap of the kitchen sink to stop the stream of water. No movement from her new owl friend, who's eyes were still fixated on her. Melody slowly pulled her iPhone out of her pocket. She had been living downtown long enough to know that seeing an owl was not common. "Not common is putting it lightly," she smiled to herself as her mind drifted to the possible social media posts she will be making about this little scare.

Inspired, she typed 'barn owl sign' into Google. "This must mean something," she said to herself.

The first thing to appear on the search was a featured snippet, something Google's algorithm will produce when it thinks it has a concrete answer to your inquiry.

The Barn owl is a sign of strength above adversity. You will overcome many things/obstacles in THIS lifetime. You are to use your innate wisdom for yourself and the energy given to you is for yourself. You must know the value of your gifts and understand, your power is not in vain. - Source: Quornesha S. Lemon 06/17/2017

"Sweet!" Melody grinned. Eager to learn more, she scrolled down to the 'People also ask' widget conveniently placed after the second Google hit. Melody tapped on the first question: Is it good luck to see a barn owl?

People think owls are harbingers of death, listening to their call or seeing their faces is thought to bring bad luck. They are also associated with black magic,” she says. - Source: The New Indian Express

Melody furrowed her brow as she scrolled to a different question. Are owls a good omen?

Myth: Owls are bad luck/Owls are omens of death.

Reality: Owls are no more bad luck than black cats, broken mirrors, or spilled salt. In many cultures, owls are seen as bad luck or omens of death and are feared, avoided or killed because of it. Source: International Owl Center

Frustrated by conflicting responses, Melody's gaze drifted back up to the window. The owl was still perched on the branch, although it had somehow shifted closer to the window. Mere inches from the windowsill. Melody stepped toward the sink, feeling confident enough to get a better look. The owl looked so much bigger up close. Phone still in hand, Melody closed Google, opened the camera, and, taking care to ensure the flash was off, got in position to take some pictures for Instagram.

"Oh, why is this so hard," Melody sighed as realized that, when looking through the camera, one couldn't see the owl in the window. She tried holding the phone up higher, and angling the phone down at the window. Still nothing. Then she tried the opposite, resting the phone on the counter and angling up at the window. Oddly enough, she could get the tree and the branches in focus, but the owl was nowhere to be seen.

Feeling frustrated once again, Melody slid her phone back into her pocket. "Whatever, no one would care about this anyway," she decided. "What's important is figuring out what this means."

Melody walked back to her bedroom to grab her laptop, sensing that figuring this out was going to take a more intensive web search than just glancing at Google's top hits.

Melody barely made it into her bedroom before she stopped dead in her tracks. There was a shape in her bed. A body. Like someone was sleeping under the covers. Frozen in place, Melody couldn't even think. After more than a few moments, Melody decided it was best to softly retreat, and exit the apartment as swiftly as possible. Fear gripped her as she shifted her weight, preparing to walk backwards. Out of the corner of her eye, Melody saw what looked like shoulder-length chocolate brown curls splayed across the pillow.

Her fear was compounded by confusion as she clumsily stumbled out of her bedroom. Swaying side to side, she somehow made her way back into her bathroom. She picked up the pill bottle left by the sink. She rolled it in her hand, just as she had minutes ago. Only this time, she realized the bottle was empty.

The dread seeped back into Melody's chest in an instant. So did the chill in her spine, but now she could feel it all the way to her fingertips. She hastily opened the cabinet behind the bathroom mirror, only to find that all her other pill bottles were also empty.

"No."

Melody ran to the kitchen. Again, she stopped the millisecond she entered the room. The kettle was not on the kitchen counter like she had left it. It was on its shelf, as if no one had moved it at all.

The owl was gone from the window.

Melody turned around, facing back towards the bedroom and bathroom. However, now, the owl was sitting in the middle of the walkway. Melody's vision began to blur.

Something bad wasn't going to happen. Something bad already happened.

The owl opened its beak and began screeching at Melody. But Melody couldn't hear it.

Melody finally understood what the silence meant.

.

.

Melody was dead.

-sc.