The Night Owl Story Dilemma
Remembering a Barn Owl Dream
As of late, my life’s been hectic and stressed. My household has been sick with covid for the past month since all four members in my family had their turn in contracting this God forsaken virus that has changed the world and taken loved ones. At the rate of one day at a time, we’ve been slowly crawling out the trenches of the symptoms that caused separation, fear and desperation in my family.
Well, as of today we’re all feeling better. My husband’s mobility is starting to get back to normal and he’s returning to work on our business. The kids are finally able to function and tackle their school assignments and they’re back in school again (with a heavy heart, Hooray!).
It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. My time has been consumed with playing nurse, teacher, mentor, therapist, oh and a complete maid and possibly a germaphobe. So besides being a wife and a mom, my duties have tripled.
Any who, I decided to go to my Vocal account to see what’s been going on and check out the challenges. For today I was determined to enter a challenge and write my mind out. The first challenge was ‘Return of the Night Owl’ which had nine hours left, the second was ‘Life Unleashed’ which had three days left, and third there was ‘Hometown Heroes’ which had twenty-one days left, and the fourth one was ‘We Have A Dream’ which also had 21 days left. As I read out the challenges to decide which challenge I felt more up to entering, I had a bit of a challenge myself trying to decide which challenge I was in a mood to tackle today.
So, I started to eliminate the challenges that required more emotional stand points. In the past month my life has been emotional enough that I didn't want to write about a hometown hero.
Well, for a few minutes I thought about this challenge but it required a lot of soul searching and that was something I didn’t want to tap into because I moved around a lot as a kid, as I was a foster child who’ve had a rough childhood. At this point, I couldn’t relate to having a hometown hero. Besides, there were lots of people who helped me thrive throughout my tribulations, including myself. With conclusion that challenge was out the drawing, plus I still have time for some soul digging with that challenge.
I eliminated the second challenge ‘Life Unleashed’. Frankly, I have two little dogs, Paris a “Chorkie”(Chihuahua and Yorkshire Mix), who’s thirty-five in dog years and Queen a Maltese who’s 42 in dog years. Even though I’m in love with my fur babies and I can share endless memories we’ve made, I didn’t feel like writing about them this afternoon. Just not in the mood today, and that’s ok.
I also eliminated the fourth challenge ‘We Have A Dream’. I won’t be dismissing this challenge totally because I actually love this challenge and I can go on all day about all the steps I will take to foster kindness and inclusivity but right now, I will leave this challenge for the upcoming days when I’ve had enough time to regroup all of my thoughts from this challenge.
It all came down to the ‘Return of the Night Owl’ challenge. Which required a short fiction that included a barn owl at any point in my narrative. I thought and thought about what I could write with a barn owl. While I thought hard about my fictional barn owl story I took the initiative to just write out some thoughts about my dilemma with the current vocal challenges. Then slowly, a memory came to mind. A memory of a dream I had with an owl a few weeks ago, and I didn’t even know it. Before I came to realize it, I remembered the very short dream.
In my dream, I was sitting on a mountain peak enjoying the cool air that drifted on my face, suddenly the mountain began to collapse. I was hysterically scared for my life and started running down the mountain so that I wouldn’t fall between the rubble of all the trees and rocks caving down. I was running so fast that I lost track of where I was going. Suddenly the ground beneath me crumbled and sunk and I found myself falling down through the fog to my death until I felt a thump on my back and felt myself floating through the skies.
When I came to realized it, I was lying on a barn owl’s back. The owl was all vividly black with neon colorful wings that consisted of pink, blue, yellow and green. Its eyes were vivid yellow and as it flew unto a field of lavenders to drop me off, it spoke to me. The owl told me to "wake up!"
Abruptly, I woke up from the dream. I sat up on my bed for about an hour thinking about the dream. No matter how much I tried to recap, I couldn’t remember what it was for the life of me.
After that I went about my day and had forgotten about it until this afternoon. Lucidly, for this challenge I remembered the dream with the black and colorful barn owl. I’d say, perfect timing, who knows?
That goes to show that sometimes words, thoughts or even an action can trigger memories that you didn’t even know you had.
While thinking hard about what to write for this challenge, I said to myself, “Welp! I think it’s safe to say that I can use this half fictional story for my challenge.” Don’t you?
About the Creator
Jea Santos-Strong
Jea Santos-Strong is a creative writer of bold family dramas, and short flash fictional stories. Her inclination for writing and film stems from childhood struggles that drive her to share stories about relationships & real-life struggles.
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