The Silent Observer

Brilliant shades of purple and orange set the dawn ablaze, biting back the cloudless starry sky from the inky nighttime blue. Jet black eyes watched the hulking figure from her pine tree perch as it strode into the open meadow, its gait lumbering and rigid. She watched passively as the pale light from the fading full-moon lit his shaggy, cumbersome form, and he knelt in the center of the isolated meadow with an exacerbated lurch. Too big, too unwieldy. They always struggled to maneuver by the end of the night.

He grit his teeth and growled lowly, his mouth forming a viciously tormented snarl. His vacant, wincing blue eyes revealed that he was only barely there now, buried somewhere deep within the beast as he melded grotesquely from monster to man. Grey-furred black flesh rippled and gave, sinew twisting as meat writhed and painfully shrank away, bones cracking under spectacular pressure. A murmuring hiss escaped violently shrinking lungs as they shifted in his massive chest, ragged, gasping inhales pleading desperately for the oxygen lost in the abrupt expulsion. A contrived, gurgling cry pierced the cool, damp air, startling the uninitiated wildlife new to such primitive scenes. She was not, and though he bellowed in his anguish, it did little to dissuade her fascination.

Whole feet shaved from his height in seconds. Hundreds of pounds of well-corded muscle warped into pink, gently toned arms and sloping shoulders that lacked the dedication required for definition. His long, unkempt mousy brown mane was left knotted and full of wild detritus from his lycanthropic adventures, leaving little sticks and dried leaves tangled in greasy loose curls. Gnarled black claws sank gradually into slender, splayed fingers, and he grasped blindly at the vegetation as he bent forward mid-transformation.

He slumped forward completely onto his naked stomach once his ordeal ended and slowly rolled over in the grass amid a sea of lush green ferns, the meager effort proving utterly exhausting. His grip eased, loosing fistfuls of weedy dirt when he finally stilled, a dark maroon worm falling from the clump in his right hand. He rested there for what felt like hours, his glacial blue eyes on the brightening morning sky above. His chest heaved with immense strain, his rapidly palpitating heart thundering until it finally slowed. The smell of wet earth filled his nose, instilling a burgeoning calm that came gradually as he centered himself. Finally grounded in familiar human reality once more, he rose to his bare, mud-encrusted feet.

He retrieved his navy-blue tote from a mossy tree hollow at the meadow’s edge in what had felt like a daze, absently dressing himself in a quiet, awed serenity. He knew that the bottomless yearning would come again and again and that his skin would grow tighter and tighter until he could burst free from it entirely and indulge the slavering beast within. For now, self-contained in that fleeting and precious moment, he felt sated and new. His appetites now lurked just in his periphery, giving him the clarity of man to operate as his other self once more.

He glanced up in her direction, always calmed to see her there. He wanted desperately to thank her, but he was unsure just how to express his appreciation. Her grey-brown mottled, tawny golden plumage and heart-shaped, ghost-white face became a beacon for him through each painful transition like a bright guiding force. She was always here when he visited, ever the keen observer. No judgment, no fear, only a healthy animalistic sense of respect. She regarded him steadily, the stoic barn owl up in the tree. He offered her a placid smile in gratitude in return for her dedication, her the reticent keeper of his darkest secrets. Then, he turned and started away.

She dropped on the great bow of her delicate wings in his absence, taking soundless flight through her forest. The ever-silent observer watched soft pink figure after soft pink figure rise below her on her solemn patrolling vigil, each sedated and resolute on their quiet journeys back home.