Spirit

You wake up and it's quiet. 

The dark doesn't abate when you blink the sleep away and lift your head from your pillow; warm and uncomfortable from digging your head into it while you dream. 

You look for your clock, to see what ungodly hour your consciousness decided to pull you into reality, but it's dark as well.

You push and pull your body against the grasping confines of your quilt, twisting as much as your unyielding form will allow, until you're able to throw yourself back once more, now facing the ceiling. 

It's dark. 

You only hear the air circulating in your lungs as you breathe. 

In

    Out

In

            Out

In

You come back to awareness with a quick gasp; you didn't realize that you had stopped.

You can feel the grit in your eyes, but your arms are too heavy to wipe it away as you catch your breath.

It's so quiet. 

You breathe.

You finally drag your eyes away from the ceiling, instead looking to the window neaby.

Its dark, and you can't feel the breeze that should be wafting through the open cavity. 

You should get up and cool off.

You don't.

Your legs are made of cement and paper mache; too much movement would break them into hard, sharp shards that will impale themselves into the sheets. 

You breathe and stare at the portal into the dark. 

You think it's oozing into your room, the outside dark, coating everything in a deepening haze. 

Soon it will swallow you and your consciousness along with everything else. 

It's quiet.

Then it's not.

A soft "hoo" sounds from the portal, from the dark. 

It repeats again, and again. 

Your mind conjures a dappled form sitting at the edge of the sill, creams and browns stark against the black. 

You stop breathing, as it must be a spirit, as nothing mundane could be so clear when sitting in the midst of the haze. 

The spirit coos, black eyes gleaming with their own light.

You find yourself relaxing again, still watching the spirit. It's coos sounding more and more like that lullaby your grandmother sang to you each night when you were small and still made of putty and clay. 

Your head lolls to the side, only rubber holding your stone skull. 

The lullaby continues, the spirit glows. 

The haze blurs further, the spirit seems to fold, then rearrange itself, every feathered splinter resettling with perfect placement. 

It's no longer quiet, with the spirit singing. 

Tyto, your mind whispers the name of the spirit.

Guardian of wisdom to some, omen of death to others. 

All you can hear is your grandmother singing to a tiny speck of you, still spilling mud everywhere before being put in the kiln. 

Its warm. 

You close your eyes to the lullaby.

The dark will not encroach any longer. 

In

   Out

In

   Out

In

You open to light. 

The window shines with gold and rose when you turn your rubber neck to look again. 

You feel morning chilled air kiss your exposed skin like gentle hands. 

The spirit's lullaby replaced with little morning creature's wakening songs. 

The sill is empty. 

You find that your paper mache legs move again. 

You hoist yourself up on soft, clay arms, and move to stand, leaving the coffin of your sheets behind. 

Morning breeze greets your body as you stand at the sill, a lover's caress. 

You stare at the wood for any sign of the spirit, but there is none. 

No scratches, no feather-splinters, no shimmer of magic. 

The sky is awash with daffodil and rose and forget-me-not. 

It's not quiet. 

It's not dark. 

There's a picture of your grandmother sitting under the sill and you touch it with transparent fingertips. 

You coo a soft note and kiss the picture

She'll visit again.