Owl Eyed Girl

It’s hard to say exactly when the dreams started. Probably around the time when I started seeing her. She came in for questioning in connection to a case related to identity theft. She was very cooperative. “Suspiciously cooperative,” my partner said. Normally those kinds of cases don’t merit the budget for a full scale investigation, but there were drugs involved, which meant the funding flowed freely. The girl’s roommate, Celeste, was caught burglarizing a house and her accomplice got away with the social security card of the house’s inhabitant.

The woman who lived in the house came home early from errands one day and caught Celeste in the act of trying to steal her car, already loaded up with all the victim’s possessions. As the woman was chasing Celeste into the street, she saw the culprit get into the car and drive off.

The victim called 911 immediately. Celeste was caught, not only in the act of fleeing a burglary, but in possession of a trunk full of drugs and a scale. But Celeste’s accomplice had already snuck out the back of the house and was using the victim’s stolen credit card to load up the gas tank of his truck. He had parked it in the alley behind the house.

I let my partner do the questioning, as I usually do. I remained behind the glass and observed. She had deep black irises that seemed to leave no room for the whites of her eyes. Her golden hair was pulled back in a long ponytail, which accentuated her widow’s peak. And her voice carried an accent that I couldn’t place. Dutch? Danish? Icelandic? One of those hurdy gurdy accents. I’ll admit, I was surprised someone like her would have a trashy roommate like Celeste. Unlike the culprit, this girl was a biology student at the local state school. She wanted to get into medical school and was trying to graduate from college debt free, which led her to live cheaply. Explains why she lived in such a bad part of town.

She was honestly relieved to be rid of her roommate. Apparently Celeste was extremely disruptive. The girl adopted a mostly nocturnal schedule, what she said was meant to accommodate Celeste’s strange behavior during the day. The girl was rarely at home according to the neighbors.

The girl told my partner that she stayed up at night to work on her classes in the library and slept all day at the park at school, but only when she wasn’t in class.

The first dream came shortly after the girl was in for questioning. I was smaller somehow and being carried by something powerful, silent, and soft. I felt free and weightless. I could see the city below me growing smaller and smaller. A feeling began growing inside of me: I wouldn’t ever have to deal with another criminal again. The crying and dead victims below me were falling far and away. They were forgiving me for not saving them. Forgiving me for not catching their killers. The night sky became the embrace of forgiveness that was there solely to consume me and let me free.

I woke up feeling a sense of peace.

After my partner questioned the girl, he felt that something was off about her. Everything seemed to check out. She was actively enrolled in her courses. She was getting top marks. But he couldn’t shake the possibility that she might be pushing Celeste’s drugs to the students on campus. I agreed, and said I would tail the girl for a few days just to make sure everything checked out. He always wanted me to do the undercover work. He said that no one ever suspected a baby faced guy like me of anything suspicious, and he was usually right. I had tracked multiple suspects in my career without anyone noticing. People, especially women I’m sorry to say, never notice me. But perhaps his instincts failed this time. She sniffed me out immediately.

At first I mostly saw her sleeping at her campus. She laid out a yoga mat and blanket under a tree in a secluded stretch of grass at her campus and dozed off effortlessly. I sat at a bench and read an old comic book watching her. This is one of the times where I can’t believe I’m paid for what I do. I was sitting at a pleasant bench, on a nice day, watching a beautiful girl sleep. But on the second day of watching her, I was laughing at a predicament a character in my comic book fell into. But when I looked up in her direction at that moment, she was sitting straight up, looking at me with her dark eyes. I continued to read like I didn’t notice her. But then she walked over. All I could do is put my book down and smile.

“I like your smile,” she said.

Now that was something I didn’t expect. I always hated my smile. I have slightly buck teeth that I never got fixed, so I always thought that I looked like a mouse when I smiled. The fact that she liked it caught me off guard.

“No kidding? I was always called Mousy Manny as a kid,” I said.

“I like that name. Can I call you Manny?” she said.

“A pretty girl like you can call me whatever you want, so long as you won’t rip out my heart.”

“Then it’s better if I call you by your proper name. Then you can buy me lunch.”

“Ah, well then in that case you can call me Manfred.”

She led me to one of the student gourmet ghettos. There was a restaurant from just about every country there. She led me to a Peruvian restaurant that she said was her favorite.

We sat down and a waiter gave us the menus, but the girl already knew what she wanted.

“I’ll have the Thursday special,” she said.

“I guess I’ll have that too, what is it?”

“Guinea pig.”

“What?”

“Just try it, you’ll love it,” then she turned to the waiter, “and leave the head on mine please, you know how I like it.”


But I didn’t love it. Instead, I loved watching her devour it. She was a ravenous eater. It was hard to believe a small and delicate thing like her could eat like that. She tore into the small rodent, holding it with her hands and picking the bones clean. 

“I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy,” I said, motioning toward the head of the animal on her plate, "He kinda looks like me. He has my smile.” 



“I think that’s why he’s so tasty.”

Eventually my partner and I were convinced that she was clean. Celeste’s partner in crime was caught on camera trying to buy a gun at a Walmart with the victim’s credit card and was caught within a week after that. He talked like the coward he was and turned in six of his buddies who sold drugs and stolen identities. The case was closed and we both received commendations.

My partner said I deserved a vacation, which I gladly took him up on. 
I continued seeing the girl, now cleared of any wrongdoing. We went to various restaurants and I continued to watch her tear apart meat. Eventually I invited her to my apartment.



As I saw her throughout my three week vacation, the dreams became more and more vivid. I was flying away higher and higher and feeling lighter and lighter. I felt like I was becoming part of something bigger. Like I was being broken down and turned into a higher organism. They were beautiful dreams. I was in the last week of my vacation and the girl was just starting her spring break.

“Let’s go camping,” she said while we were taking a walk on her campus.

I never really went camping, but being the nature loving biology major she was, she had a favorite spot. But then she surprised me. She said she had a permit to hunt there and would catch us our dinner.

“I’m a good shot, I’ll catch us something and make you a real natural meal you’ll never forget.”

How could I say no to that?

We agreed that I would drive to the camp site and she would cook. I told her that even though I was around guns all day, seeing them still made me nervous. But when we got out of the car when we arrived, she cradled the gun like a baby and her dark eyes looked relaxed. The darkness in her eyes seemed to suck the worry out of mine. Her confidence excited me. It was like it was carrying me away. Higher and higher. We set up camp in a secluded spot. The ground was soft with dirt and leaves. We even saw a deer in the distance.

“Did you bring any of your comics?” She asked.

“I did, why?”

“I want you to stay here and read them while I go hunt our meal. I don’t want you to see me hunt. You’re on vacation. You deal with guns and blood all the time. Let me go out and do the dirty work and you stay here and relax, ok?”

I was curious to see what kind of shot she was, but I appreciated her thoughtfulness and let her have her way.

“I’ll wait right here.”

“Great, I’ll be back a while after sunset, in just about an hour.”

She came back just when she said. She was holding a duck by the neck. Only I couldn’t see any bullet holes. Just slashes. They appeared more clearly after she quickly plucked the bird and tore out its guts.

“Those are some strange looking bullet holes,” I said.

“The duck was just grazed by my bullets. But he still bled out all the same.”

She was fast with her hands and even faster with a knife. She cooked a pretty decent meal on a skillet with a portable propane stove. She didn’t tear into the meal as ravenously as she usually devoured her meat. I had never had duck before. I have to admit that what she made was incredible. I never had a more delicious meal in my life. If I were to ever have a last meal, this is what I would choose.

I fell asleep easily in the tent after we made love and slipped into another dream.

This dream felt colder than my other dreams. I was still lifting up higher and higher, nearing the clouds above me. The stars between the clouds were brighter and I wasn’t looking at a city disappear below me anymore, only trees and a river. But the initial cold turned to warmth as I felt myself become coated in something hot. It was blood. I did something I never did in my other dreams and looked up at the soft and strong thing carrying me. A barn owl looked back at me.

It had the girl’s eyes. Soon, I would become part of those eyes.