Owls den

Date: 1/27/2023

I was in the owls den but I was turning into a mouse. But I was a famously vigilant mouse. I began to feel the cruelty and the hunger of the owl that was once my friend, my equal, and lover. As a mouse I ran to the next room. I had to sneak behind the double desk of 2 children playing on the computer. I made it through and in the next room was myself as a human at age 8 or 9 and my parents in their 20s. But we looked the same age. I was washing the dishes and my parents were arguing. From behind the couch my human self saw my mouse self, as she was also famously vigilant. My human self kneeled and was happy to have someone to play with. But i had to tell my human self that I was in danger. It was time to run. A group of other forest creatures only slightly bigger than my mouse-self were there on the floor in front of the couch debating. They were academics. I thought they would create a stir and my parents would stop arguing and kill my mouse-self. So I showed them a book. On the cover it said SEMPER VIGILANTES. It mezmerized them. Only I knew the pages inside were blank. They would be incapable of writing anything new. Only debating. My human self was crying that I had to go. But she packed a flimsy bookbag full of a few things. Unlikely paper cutout tools for navigation. I felt myself begin to get larger than my human self and she saw me to the front porch through the window with tears in her eyes. I knew how lonely she would be and I didn't want to leave her. She went back into the kitchen to say smartass things and keep them distracted. My youngest son appeared. He had a bookbag of his own. He was about 4 and looked up at me adoringly and smiling with his gap teeth with his eyes gleaming to take my hand. I had no shoes of my own that fit and the porch was full of others shoes. My parents shoes, my siblings, my grandparents. I would have to take one from my mother and one from my father but they were both too small. Or I would have to go into the snow barefoot. But I swallowed my dread and looked out into the dark and cold tundra...spotted with patches of snow. I looked back into the warm house on McCracken and said goodbye. I looked at my son and smiled and whispered "it's time to go on adventure, we're going to learn how to be stealthy"