Shall We Be Nobody?

Had he not ventured into the garden at such a late time of night, could he have avoided such a horrible luxuriance?

What practical reason did he truly have to leave his quarters? Was it curiosity or boredom that influenced his exodus from the dull gray of his residence? Perhaps it was both. Such feelings were so mundane individually, but had they always been so cruel together? He pondered these things silently, though they somehow surpassed the volume of his weeping.

The familiar voice had come down to him like gentle rain, a sweet refute to his lament. Was it his own? From whence did it come? He initially was enraged by the trespasser, but elected instead to feel concern (if not compassion).

The boy—or the man now, if he could remember his age—followed the song, growing frantic as he considered its songstress. He tumbled over the excessive growth covering the garden floor, which he had neglected for years, as the sound gained clarity and volume.

The source of the noise was perched comfortably on the sill of an arch-shaped opening in the garden wall. When the boy-almost-man entered this section of the garden, he fell to the ground with disappointment and exhaustion, leaning against the trunk of a poorly trimmed but blossoming almond tree and facing the uniform, window-like openings through which gentle moonlight spilled thickly, like cream, across the soft zoysia grass.

After what he supposed was around thirty minutes, he almost submitted to the reasonable conclusion that he had misheard the frigid, tinkling wind when It spoke once more.

“Aren’t you cold?” It asked. Finally, he could discern where the voice came from. A young owl with a delicate cloak of patterned feathers stared at him intently, but Its smooth beak remained closed despite Its several utterances. He found this curious, but nevertheless suck solace in the calm, kind nature of the voice, which was clearly his own. “Come on, don’t you know how to speak?”

“It’s been long since I’ve spoken at all,” he responded hesitantly, almost shamefully, in a voice painfully hushed by months of disuse. He didn’t doubt part of the burning in his throat was the work of a brandy aged twelve years.

“What are you doing outside at this hour?” It asked. “If mother knew, she’d scold you.”

“What do you know of my mother? Exactly who are you?” The man-boy asked in response. His tone was genuine in contrast with the sharpness of his words. What makes you think you can speak with such authority? Is what he really wanted to ask.

“Whoever you are is who I am. What more do I need to be?” The owl adjusted its position on the perch, but otherwise seemed absent.

He considered this and carefully constructed a clever reply.

“I’m Nobody.”

“Then so am I. We’ll be Nobody together.”

The young man held his hand out to the owl, which hopped for a moment before fluttering down onto his thin wrist, accepting his invitation. He stroked the soft feathers of the owl’s face for several minutes as emotional tears began to well behind his eyes, rolling in thick drops down his face and off his chin.

Crack.

After a flash of black, he found himself standing in the place where he had been sitting not even a moment earlier. The owl lay pitifully at his feet, shrieking once more before falling into eternal rest, and his hand was covered in light tufts of down.

“Why did you kill it?” The voice asked. However, it was a new voice. It came from the man’s mouth, and it had lost the youth it once possessed. The voice was no longer hopeful and innocent. Instead, it was now a dull, monotone drone.

“I didn’t mean to.” He fell to his knees, cradling the fragile body in his hands.

“If you didn’t mean to, it wouldn’t be dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

The chorus of voices had gradually unified into one, and now he was unsure which of them was speaking; he even could no longer tell when he himself spoke. After several consecutive moments of melancholy stillness, a voice spoke again.

“Why did you kill it?”

“I don’t kn—”

“Is it because, somehow,” the voice—the man, rather—cut itself off, “it is you?”

The man came to the horrifying realization that the owl was now gone, and that with it, he had killed what remained of his purity.

As he coldly gazed down at the lifeless creature that remained affectionately nestled in his arms, he felt disgrace and self-loathing wash over him like a baptism. Like curiosity and boredom, had these things always been so cruel together? Had the garden always been only one color? Had the flowers always had such a bland aroma? Had the tinkling wind always been like static?

The man could do nothing more than weep.