Bird's-eye View

Again, I lay restlessly pressed against the chafe of synthetic polyester, grasping for slumber with a desperation which grows more abortive with each passing tick. My repugnance towards the clock face thickens with every glance, its visage twisting into a menace of unprecedented mockery. The brassy echo of its ticks bellow and I recoil deeper into my linen until the heat of my breath prompts my surrender. I raise a weary frame, hunched in sulking defeat by my enemy and shift my feet indolently to the floor, its contact chilly and overtly offensive.

The spirals inlaid within the oak form impish grins and they gaze at my feeble gait with hysterics, exchanging whispers and snickers with one another and pushing me further into retreat. I press on, only to avoid perpetual torment, and exit the room, each step rising in constriction as if there were a cord laid around my waist, meeting its other end in the unyielding clutches of my oppugnant bed. I approach the front door in exasperated hopes that my egress severs this tie, though it stands daunting before me like the maw of a giant, resting patiently for the demise of its unsuspecting prey. A fervent drive for escape withstands, and I unhinge the jaws of this riveted beast, delving sheepishly into its gullet.

I trickle down the stairwell, my flesh meeting the icy wisps of January, raising gently as if frightened by their glassy salutation, each follicle resisting with operose attempt, though each to no avail. My feet then meet the remnants of a fragile snow bed, sinking instinctively as if they were reaching for the Earth beneath them, like a child towards its mother, though eternally separated a mere inch from embrace. I stand still with hesitancy, though I hear the snickers and torments from behind me and persevere with stifled apprehension.

I trek the ominous string of gravel, its expanse concealed in a blur of shrouded indigo though it lies neighbored by conifers, leaving spurs at the base of my trot and torments against my flight. I quail in anguish, my feet bare under their stream of perils, the gravel turns to teeth and the spurs, their canines. I pivot towards retreat, mocked by nature’s circumstantial protest, its omens cruel in their predominance, though just as I make my first stride towards withdrawal, anticipating the reflexive gnarl of the grit beneath my feet, a deep rustle growls from beneath the evergreens, its branches teeming with fervor, hurling down rains of spines like arrows towards their target. A vigor matchless to some great leviathan.

With my posture in alarming stagger, seconds from instinctive flee, the beast emerges. Streaks of brooding copper distinguish its form, its silvery accents refracting in moonlit iridescence and its eyes: striking saucers of ethereal vermilion. I tremble, unmoving in its divine presence, its silhouette proud and imposing, as if expecting some grand gesture of adoration though I stand unworthy, timorous of denial and of demise. Standing breathlessly, I await defeat, though the air begins to settle into muted ambiance and my vision is slowly freed from the confines of my eyelids until I see it.

There before me lies no threat, no beast nor titan. No somber giant awaiting my consumption, but only an owl, grand in its stature, though earnestly tranquil, and as quick as it revealed its attendance, it fled, the moon eclipsed beneath its alabaster wings. I stand paralyzed in astonishment as I watch this angel dissolve behind the mountainous green in a silence which seemed unearthly and then, it is gone.

Suddenly, I am met with a sense of great fulfillment, as if some unrealized goal had come into consummation, and with it receded my trepidation. As if by design, I commence my return, the relentless mastication of the earth beneath me reduced to an innocent gnaw, the hairs of my flesh smoothed to an even grain and the glacial breath of winter tapered to a gentle kiss. My feet refill their former cavities in the shallow remnants of snowfall though now they grip the dirt beneath this niveous veil, with a subtle warmth previously unturned.

With pointed diligence, I climb the stairwell, hatted with the same door yet now discreet, it greets me with timid reticence, and I am welcomed to my home. I stride along my floors, their wicked grimaces now drawn to thin lines and I commend them for their couth. They guide me to my bed, its sheets stretched in alluring invitation, and we enfold as old friends, its woven arms pulling me into tender deposit. My eyes grow heavy, and in their final efforts skip to face their foe, though now there rests only a clock, its ticks condensed to gentle hums.