Jaelyn's Owl

She wakes up feeling nostalgic and curious every time she has this dream. It is a re-occurring dream she has had since she was little. In her dream she walks out of an old barn in the countryside that she has not seen before. She can smell the sweet smell of summer wheat fields and moisture from a nearby creek or a pond. There is a large old plastic covered light that hums like fluorescent lighting.

She stands there at the door for a moment taking in the smells and refreshingly warm air. She hears a fluttering sound and looks to her right and sees a post. The post may be part of what was a clothesline, or some other structure from the past. A past she longs for, the simpler times of her childhood. On the post is a beautiful barn owl. It is staring at her, as if it is peering into her soul. Such a beautiful barn owl and she wishes she could approach and see it more clearly. She takes a step towards it and when it just watches her, she takes another. She is on edge now feeling like any moment it will take flight. However, the owl just stays silently watching her. She is mesmerized as she creeps slowly closer, in love with the idea of being close to it. The barn owl does not budge, and the only sound she hears is her own breath. She makes it another 5 steps. She can see it clearly now, and as she starts to take another step the owl bends, its wings begin to stretch, and it takes flight.

This is where she typically wakes up. Longing for this place in her dream. Wishing her parents were still alive, and even though she is only 22 she feels she has aged much beyond her years since their deaths 6 months ago. She wonders if the barn owl is her mother who loved owls. Tonight, she does not wake up when the owl takes flight. She watches while it flies away from her to the top of the barn. She starts to walk away when she hears something her mind doesn’t register until it is too late. It was the sound of someone walking. She hears a metal sound and feels pain in the back of her head. Now she wakes up and she is not feeling so nostalgic this time. She is panting and she says breathlessly to herself “someone hit me!”

It is 4 AM, no use in going back to sleep. Her shift at the store begins at 6:30. She jumps in the shower and tries to shake off the new development of her dream. When she gets dressed and checks her phone, she sees a new voicemail. “Hi Jaelyn” her Aunt Lucy begins. “Amanda’s graduation party is this weekend, and she is really hoping you will be able to make it? If you need some cash to get here let me know. Just please come.” She has not seen Lucy or her cousin Amanda since the funeral. She is lost in thought again, missing her parents. She thinks about the party for a moment and decides she should go. She and her cousin have always been close. Who knows it might be just what she needs? She will leave after work and will call Lucy on her lunch break. Who doesn’t need money, she says aloud? Lucy lives in the town she grew up in. Where her parents lived their entire lives. Jaelyn had to get out. She has been living in the city since she was 19 and was happy. When her parents died, she felt her sense of security fade. She always had them to fall back on if the city ever failed her. Now she feels alone. She goes to work; the grocery store and she stays home drafting short stories on her laptop. She doesn’t feel like being out in the world that killed her parents, any longer than she needs to be for work.

Jaelyn heads out the door for the day thinking about her trip. The day seems to drag on forever. At lunch she calls her Aunt Lucy who is ecstatic. Lucy sends her a bundle of cash through her banking app. Jaelyn is happy to receive it. She heads home to pack and leave. She puts on google maps and heads out in her 66’ Mustang her father gave her as a graduation gift. She is not looking forward to the 6-hour drive, at least she has nice weather and should be able to keep the top down some. Her cousin graduated a month ago, but because she is working to earn money for college, they put off her party until now. They decided to combine it with the 4th of July and since Jaelyn was able to take off work, she will not need to be back until Tuesday. A four-day weekend sounds wonderful, she despises her new boss and has been mulling around the idea of finding a different job.

As she drives, she thinks Google must have something against the interstate. Not that she doesn’t appreciate the view, she just thinks the interstate would feel faster. She passes one sleepy town only to find another. Her radio is going in and out, occasionally she hears a song she likes and sings along. Her mother always loved the sound of her voice. She swore Jaelyn should be a “professional singer/songwriter. Jaelyn never cared for the spotlight and would laugh her off at the thought. She was flipping through the stations when she heard one of her mom’s favorite songs. She started to sing along “in my daughter’s eyes I am a hero” and she thinks of how true that sentence is. Jaelyn started thinking about how awful it must have been for her mom. All the police told Jaelyn was her mother and father were found in their living room. It wasn’t until she arrived home that they told her what had happened. Even then they did not have any real answers. Her father was shot in the chest and her mother was bludgeoned with a hammer. Nobody has been arrested and there were no suspects. It was a town of 4,000 people this sort of thing never happened there. Jaelyn brushed off the thoughts and turned the radio off.

It was getting close to dark out and Jaelyn was about an hour and a half away. She stopped to get a drink and gas. Then was back on the road again. She hadn’t sold her parents’ house yet and decided she would take a detour on the back roads she explored as a teen. She used to drive just to get away and dream of bigger and better things. She was not familiar with where she was but was confident she could find her way. She and her parents lived in a large farmhouse about 10 miles outside the small town where her aunt still lived. The countryside was scantly littered with farms every mile or so. Jaelyn would see the lights as she passed. Suddenly her car began sputtering and then died. She was able to steer it to a lane she was about to pass before it stopped rolling. She was cursing her car and trying to turn it back over but it just made a grinding sound when she turned the key. She grabbed her phone to call Lucy but of course there was no signal! Jaelyn began walking up the lane hoping there was a house that was occupied at the end of it. As she drew closer, she saw a barn and even further up the lane was a house. She walked up to the barn and saw a light much like the one in her dream, it was humming a low warning sound. She shivered even though she was not cold. Jaelyn heard a shuffling sound in the barn and said “Hello!” There was no reply. She walked through the open door of the barn and looked around. The barn smelled musty and she saw a tractor that had definitely seen better days. Jaelyn turned to leave the barn and she froze for a second. She was thinking about her dream. She shrugged it off and proceeded to walk out the door. She heard a fluttering sound and turned automatically to her right. The post she saw in her dream was there. She could see that it really was part of an old clothesline, the other post broken and some string lying on the ground that was only visible because it was hanging down from the intact post. Sitting there on top of the upright post was a beautiful barn owl. Jaelyn found she could not move as she was frozen in fear. She was listening for footsteps while staring at the barn owl. The owl gave her such comfort. She could feel her mother’s essence in the owl somehow and was reassured by its gaze. When she could move she turned, and nothing was there. She turned back towards the owl and suddenly and quickly she heard metal and felt pain in the back of her head. She briefly saw the barn owl spread its wings before she slipped out of consciousness.