Black Obsidian

I was going to die. The reality didn't really take long to set in. One moment I was living the dream, the next moment I'd fallen asleep at the wheel of my existence. It was as if the mark of death wilted my energy instantaneously. I thought of everything I would never get to do. I thought of all the food I'd never get to experience. I thought of sex and the disappointment attacked the manifestion of it within me. My vitality, the very essence of creation, gone from within. How could I think of sex at a time like this?

I didn't tell anyone my world was crumbling from the inside out. As far as they could tell, everything was normal as it should be. My friends were still my friends. My family was still my family. My life was still my life but I didn't want it anymore. The strangest part was it was the life I had created. The life itself had not changed but how I felt about it did and that was what scared me the most. The question I didn't ask myself was why.

From that point on I never asked. I was going to die and that was that. To pass the time, I took walks in nature, never during the day, only at night. The silence when I stepped outside calmed me and I could usually only here my steps and the nocturnal creatures around me. I couldnt see them but I knew they were there. I could sense them.

This night I looked up at the sky and wished all the dreams I'd ever had to come true. At first, it made sense but then, my mind thought back to all the nightmares I'd had about monsters and ghosts and a fear I had not felt before creeped in. I thought, if we dream, must they always be good and happy? Surely not, so which of the sort will come true. If I could somehow only dream good, then a wish will only allow good to come true, right? It seemed impossible. I'd read about manifestation and how our thoughts shape our reality but I couldn't possibly think happy thoughts all the time, especially now I knew I was about to disappear from existence at no fault of my own.

At that moment I heard a clear and close hoo from behind me. Detached from my train of thought, I spun around and looked up to see a barn owl perched on one of the town's streetlights. I'd heard them on my late night walks before but had never taken an interest in the type of owl I'd seen or heard. I'd read a book during my early childhood of a Spanish culture claiming owls were an omen of death, a spirit from the otherside communicating with the living. What could the message be? What could this little barn owl be saying? My phone buzzed as I received a notification. I continued to walk relieved by the distraction but the owl flew to the next lamp in the same direction I had continued to walk. It was now right in front of and impossible to ignore. My curiosity forced me to jump back on the thought train. If owls are messengers from the other side maybe it was trying to communicate with me. The hoo didn't sound threatening or scary. The owl had not swooped down to claw my eyes out, in fact, it's presence was rather assuring like I had a friend. A quiet, simple friend. Then it spoke… “Death is not a thing you know. If you knew WHO death was you would not mind a visit. I could tell you WHO death is but you would not mind at all.”

That is where it left me, in complete silence questioning what I had just experienced. I had died but I was not dead. My life had changed but my heart was still beating. It was then I understood why. I did not ask but I knew why. What I believed to be true was only true until it was not and if a thing was not what I believed it was then it could not be that thing. Symbolic as a dream could be, it was what I took away from it that left what it really was. A wake up call. The call I was waiting for.