Wise Eyes

I watch from the shadows without judgment.

Judgment comes from a scarcity mindset. A self-righteous assumption based on a lack of information. I pity your kind for this reason. The picture of your lives will never be clear from your vantage point; perhaps if your neck could rotate a hundred and eighty degrees, or if your plucked and naked arms could flap fast enough to offer a bird’s-eye view. But you are limited. And darkness fits in gaps better than light.

When you’ve been watching as long as I have, seen as much as I’ve seen, judgment loosens into simple curiosity. I understand more than most, for I lack nothing. Not even time.

Jacqueline is the second in the barn this evening. She locks the door and sits behind the sedan with the missing front tires. She lifts the rain tarp and puts her back against the cold metal. Taking out her glass pipe, she makes controlled fire and sucks down the resulting smoke. I usually avoid fire, but not ones this small. Jacqueline’s mother, Sheri, has been waiting in the opposing shadows for hours now. Sheri storms out and catches her daughter in the act. She scolds and doles out punishment. Jacqueline leaves the barn cursing, angry, indignant. Her mother waits until her daughter is gone and then makes a fire of her own. She inhales the smoke deeply and begins to cry. They are stifled tears, but they are not stifled well.

I’ve seen the same patterns for ages. When a desperate man steals food from the winter cache of a stranger, others judge but for lack of the same hunger. When a lovestruck woman mates with another of different ilk, there are foul cries but for the lack of unmanageable feelings. When an unsatisfied youth decides the meaning of life has not yet been discovered and sets off an individual journey of the soul, others judge but for lack of courage, imagination, and a sense of adventure. These seekers are often stoned to death before they are fully grown. I’ve seen it happen countless times.

Did you know that humans and owls are one of very few life forms found on all seven continents? It is not a coincidence. We have always watched your kind. And vice versa. Is it not a beautiful phenomenon that your hearts have wings. Not to mention the shape of my face.

Dylan locks the door behind him and drags the couch with torn cushions over for extra protection against spies and intruders. Dylan has been bullying other kids on the school playground. He’s much bigger and even has armpit hair. He holds other boys down and makes them eat dirt and worms and calls them terrible names. He takes scissors and cuts off locks of blonde hair from the girls. He steals things from backpacks. For some time, he sits on the couch with torn cushions and waits, digging his fingernails into his legs. He wants to see if the feelings will go away. I don’t believe they will. Eventually, he takes a stolen tube of nail polish and begins to paint his nails pink. After that, Dylan changes into one of his sister’s dresses that he keeps folded up nicely in the old ceramic pot shaped like a pig in a tuxedo. He sits back on the couch cushions and twitters his feet in the air, enjoying how the silky fabric dances smoothly up and down his brutish, hairy legs.

I enjoy perching on the top of a wooden post. I enjoy nesting in the drafty roof. I enjoy the feeling of space beneath me. I enjoy the utility of my talons. If nature has equipped you with the necessities, it is very easy to find places to rest. If it hasn’t, you may become wicked. There is no rest for those in need.

Tom comes into the barn dressed in camouflage and carrying a bow. I ruffle a little at the sight of the bow, but there are no arrows. Tom does not bring in the carcass of any game. Tom hunts for sport. He smiles when the animals bleed. He puts the bow aside with shaking hands and opens up a jar of peach rations from the shelf. He eats a jellied fruit with hollow eyes. The family whippet races into the barn, tongue hanging from its mouth, ribs threatening to poke free from its lithe frame. Tom pushes the dog away from him too hard, and the dog falls on the ground with a yelp. Tom tells it the whippet stay away. Tells it that he’s dangerous and full of poison. Tom’s hands shake; he is remembering how his own father dealt with the violence in the family blood. Tom’s right arm still doesn’t bend correctly at the elbow, and he won’t let anyone see him without a shirt on, not even Sheri. His back is a tilled field, the soil of which rain nor wind will close. I was here watching when Tom’s father altered his boy forever. Tom’s deepest fear is that the inherited violence will one day find the people he loves, so before it does, he seeks terrible outlets for such energies, even though it breaks his heart. Tom smiles when he sees the animals bleed, but the smile is not for himself. The whippet curls up at Tom’s feet and nuzzles his leg. Tom pulls the dog close, and it begins to lick the peach juice from his fingers. Dogs are even more understanding than owls.

It’s not always barns in which I watch. My kind had a different name before agriculture, before the necessity for barns. When mankind roamed as owls roam. We were referred to as temple guardians once. A good luck sighting if we nested in the rafters. And before that, we were spirits of the forest. Mankind sees the world as they are, not as it really is. I am a projection. I am a canvas on which you might paint a cut of reality. But step under my wind, and you might know what it is like to fly. Knowing is more fascinating, wouldn't you agree? Knowing has a more complex and nuanced physique than ignorance. Understanding can bend and stride. Ignorance is invertebrate.

Sheri brings a male co-worker into the barn while Tom is at work. She closes her eyes during the act and pretends the man is Tom.

*

Jacqueline sits on the stack of old phone books and needles a tattoo under her lip because it’s supposed to disappear in two years. It’s a secret marking, but she wants it to be seen.

*

Tom leans against his tool shed and reads a big blue book. He will try anything. He is afraid that Sheri or any of his family might see what lurks beneath the surface. He can’t get close. He can’t allow himself.

*

Dylan wrestles with a boy from another school, and they both end up undressed. They repeat this on four more occasions and Dylan eventually kicks the boy in the jaw and breaks it because he is in love.

*

Sheri never brings the co-worker back. She wants to renew her vows in the hopes it allows her and Tom to be physical again.

*

Jacqueline sees Dylan wearing her dress but doesn’t say anything. She leaves a new dress on top of the old one for her big brother to have. Dylan sees is and never returns to the barn.

*

Tom finds an incriminating wrapper under the shelf of peaches.

*

A new family soon moves in.

*

People come and go, always the same and always different. They are different in how they dress, how old they are, how many meals they carry around on their hips, and how many wrinkles age their faces. Small things.

They are all the same in how they react. How they disappoint. How the hurt one another. How they hold back the right words. How they cheat. How they break. How they steal. How they covet. How they sing. How they pray. How they hope. How they boast. How they lie. How they laugh at the misfortune of others. How they hide from others. How they talk to themselves and say it’s all going to be okay when it isn’t. How they run away. How they are hesitant in the light of love. How they pretend. How they hold their heads up. How they let their shoulders slump. How they need one another. How they don’t.

I watch from the shadows without judgment.