The Gifts of Midnight Blue

The wall of sound, of shrieks, tweets, and squawks, had subsided for the day. Alex was quite accustom to the racket but relished these gentle pauses just before closing. Before he headed home for the day, his pet store would flip from chaotic pheromone-fueled menagerie to a personal oasis where he could get lost in a musty old book, such as Beowulf or The Odyssey.

It was an oddly warm January evening. It had been dark awhile, and Alex hadn't seen anyone in over an hour. He would wait for any last minute customers to arrive before the official 7:00 pm closing time. It was common for people to suddenly remember, just before they sat down to dinner, that they were out of cat food. Closing time came and went as Alex checked the water of each bird and hamster. As he turned the key in the front door, a hand slapped onto the glass, leaving a sweaty hand print. A man, clad in a pizza delivery polo, stood panting outside Alex's store.

"I'm sorry. We're closed," said Alex.

"Please," said the pizza delivery man as he fogged up the glass, "This is an emergency."

Alex turned the key and unlocked the door with a soft pop. He wasn't about to let some cat go hungry because of this idiot.

"How can I help?" he asked as he held open the door.

"I need to buy a mouse," said the pizza delivery driver as he burst into the store.

"You need a pet mouse right now?" Alex saw a frantic look in the man's eyes. He had experiences in the past with anxious parents coming in to replace a dead pet before their kids found out.

"Are pet mice separate from food mice?" said the man. "Look, I just need to feed an owl. That's all."

"Woah, slow down," said Alex. "Unless you are licensed to rehabilitate owls, and I have a suspicion you don't, you shouldn't have an owl."

"I don't," said the pizza man, his head frantically swiveling back and forth to glance over his shoulder. "Look, there he is!"

Alex's eyes followed the man's emphatically straight arm, pointing out into the completely deserted parking lot. One lamp post failed to turn on, leaving a black pool in the center of the orange flood of light.

"What are you trying to-" Alex trailed off as he spotted the glint of two golden eyes. Atop the blown-out lamp post, barely visible against the night sky, sat an owl. Alex believed his eyes were deceiving him but the hue of the owl seemed to be a deep shade of blue.

"What kind of owl is that?" he thought out loud. "It's about the right size to be a barn owl, but I've never seen plumage like that."

"I'll take whatever you got," said the pizza man. "I just need to feed it."

"What's your name man?" asked Alex.

"Kyle."

"You shouldn't feed wild animals, Kyle."

"Jesus Christ, get off my case," said Kyle, rubbing his temples. "These are extenuating circumstances. We're talking once in a life time, unexplainable, miraculous happenstance, first good thing that's happened to me since my wife left me, kind of circumstances."

"An owl can be all that?" said Alex with a raise of a single eyebrow.

"Yes," said Kyle thrusting a hand deep into a pant pocket. "Look!"

Kyle opened his clenched fist to reveal an assortment of matted fur and broken bones; the remnants of an owl pellet was Alex's best guess. In the center of all this, cooly lay a shimmering gold coin in Kyle's palm. Alex registered that it was unique and richly engraved, but it was gone and back in Kyle's pocket before he could make out anything else.

"I was just driving back to end my shift." Words poured out of Kyle as fast as he could form them. "And it all happened so fast, but I guess I was looking at my phone when I shouldn't have, and suddenly I'm swerving and that bird is swooping in front of the windshield and I total my car into the trunk of a tree. And I'm sitting there, with the car smoking and crumpled around me, and this owl perches in the tree above me and hacks up a real gold coin. Right on top of me. I've found my golden goose!"

"Wow, Kyle." said Alex "That's incredible, but it probably just swallowed a coin by mistake somehow."

"Maybe," said Kyle. "But I think it's worth a try to see if it has at least one more in its guts. And when I left the wreck and started walking, only like a couple blocks from here, that bird kept following me."

"I see what you mean by extenuating circumstances," said Alex looking back towards the owl. Its eyes looked firmly in the pet store's direction.

"I'll give you all my tips," said Kyle. "Just give me a mouse."

"Okay, I've got some frozen mice that I was thawing for the snakes," said Alex. "I'll give you one of those for free. I just want a good look at the coin in exchange."

Kyle's eyes grew wild again, and Alex thought he might snap.

"Deal," said Kyle releasing a deep and shaky breath.

Within a few minutes, one disheveled pizza delivery driver and one reserved pet store owner with a bag of dead mice and feeding tongs, stood beneath the lamp post of the midnight-blue owl.

The owl immediately swooped down and snatched the mouse from the tongs in Kyle's out stretched hand and devoured it greedily from its lamp post perch.

"As promised," said Kyle, proudly presenting the golden coin to Alex while he picked off a final bit of fur with gusto.

Alex took out his reading glasses and held the coin close to his face. It was unlike any coin he had seen before in his life. It depicted an entire scene in excruciating, life-like detail. It seemed serene, like his shop just before closing. A hacking noise, followed by a clink on the pavement, interrupted his enamored thoughts.

"Yes!" yelled Kyle as he ran over and picked up his second fur coated coin. He kissed it with excitement. "I'm going to be rich!"

"Thank you," said Alex as he handed back his coin to Kyle. His head felt foggy and his actions slow. "I have no idea what to make of this, but I don't think I'm likely to forget it."

"Thank you man," said Kyle. "I'll find a way to pay you back some day. After I get my life together."

They shook hands, and Alex walked back to his store to finally lock up for the night. He smiled as he reflected on the image of the coin. There was something very familiar about it. Sure, the figure guiding the boat through molasses waters seemed a bit gaunt and morose but also welcoming.

"Two coins for the boatman," he muttered under his breath.

Alex froze as he realized what he said.

"Kyle!" he cried as he whipped around. Kyle and the midnight-blue owl, there only moments before, were gone. The parking lot was completely deserted once more and Alex heard, a few blocks away or so, the blare of sirens.