The Hooting

That’s the problem with childhood, you only get one. It can be nasty and brutish or gloriously joyful but whatever, it’s short. It’s over before you had any time to really process it;good or bad.

Maya’s recall was patchy at best, she supposed it meant that her childhood was ok. Neither good nor bad perhaps mundane maybe. She had been an average student at school she didn’t think she had been bullied there, well, she couldn’t really recall any incidents. At school or for that matter, anywhere else.

SHUDDER

Except one… there was one that bubbled up and coated her in fear.

Occasionally she’d still wake up in a cold sweat.

It was dark, well yes of course it was dark, it was the middle of the night. But this dark was oppressive, like treacle, it was as if no light would permeate it.

She remembered the first time it ever happened.

HOLIDAY

She was at her uncle’s holiday house. A rather tumble down affair near farmland bordered by some woods. In the daytime her uncle was a jolly life and soul of the party chap. Her auntie, her mother’s sister adored him. Yes a lovely man.

But he’d come into her bedroom very early one morning only wearing underpants and although he’d proceeded to have a completely normal conversation with her, she had found this profoundly disturbing. Not that she could have found the words then that her seven year old self was reaching for. He had laughed and said I guess I should put on some trousers..

DID THAT HAPPEN?

She’d never felt comfortable around him after that. It was probably nothing, in fact somehow she knew it was nothing. Nonetheless, she just felt uneasy.

Later that day, well in the dead of night she had woken with a start a very eerie sound was repeating over and over again. It was pitch black in that run down holiday cottage where she, her auntie and uncle and her grandma were staying. There were heavy black out curtains on the window and it was in the middle of nowhere too. There was just no light anywhere.

EERIE

The noise grew louder and Maya could have sworn it was in the room. She couldn’t block out the noise and besides she was terrified.

Her fear reached fever pitch when she heard a man’s voice whisper “Don’t worry, Maya love, it’s the night owl”

Her uncle was standing in her room, naked, clothed …she didn’t know because it was so black. But he was there.

The shriek she let out drowned out the sound of the hooting owl.

The light snapped on … and her Aunty was there… “Bill!, you’ve been bloody sleepwalking again!”

But had he really? Maya wondered… He had spoken to her.

THAT NEVER HAPPENED

No one talked about this incident again. Her Aunty brought in a little night light and placed near Maya’s bed. The rest of the holiday passed without incident and every night she heard the night owl . His call should have been soothing but it made her anxious. It was illogical because she knew she was safe. She was so happy to see her mum and glad to return to her parents home. She didn’t see or hear much from Uncle Bill from then on… and all her future holidays were with immediate family. She wondered about that sometimes.

Decades later she had kept up the night light habit. She lived in the middle of a high rise city block. She triplelocked the front door.

And yet some nights the haunting sound of the night owl’s call, reached her ears as if it was nesting in her room.

BURIED

She woke in fright, a childhood incident, a misunderstanding maybe seen through her seven year old eyes …casting a shadow still.