LIQUID NIGHT

You humans are vile.

You would call us animals or beasts, and yet you should take a long hard look at yourselves. Take a step back into shadow and analyse your actions. I may eat mouse's and vermin to survive, and be labelled, an animal, but I watch this man now, hunting this woman in loose darkness and I despair.

Or perhaps I should rephrase my tirade and say MAN. This poor girl should not be condemned for I know her well. Many a time I observe her from my tree, walking the shorter way. Through the park, across the green. She tends to her grandmother on the outskirts of town, making her hot tea and something warm to eat. A benevolence only seen fleetingly in this age of selfishness. I see it everyday from my tree, and in liquid night ( I like to call it liquid night as it feels like water across my wings). Lust, lies, tears spilt in momentary mistakes of fornication. Dealings in substances that I can only surmise with my animalistic mind.

This man's scent is unusual. Bitter, poisoned by the harsh terrain of life. Something has driven him to this; a descent into hallowed places no human eyes should linger. He weaves through the dark places like it calls to him. How long he has embraced this lonely place I can only fathom, but he uses it like a tool, a man in full command of intangible wares. As if he bathes in undead ideals.

She hurries. Perhaps some sixth sense of danger, a primal triggering from eons of evolution. A scent of finality, perhaps her own. She never usually makes haste through the shorter way, something has spooked her, an air of dread, the musk of the dark dweller frightens her. Feet quicken, especially hers, the dweller is in full command of his hunt, fat fingers wriggling with excitement and apex confidence.

I can smell gleeful on the wind.

He chooses his time precisely - a venture that has been prepared, rehearsed in his mind a hundred times over.

'Excuse me miss.'

Her canter is untarnished.

'Miss?'

The black path beneath her is abyssal and yet she still crosses the divide on will alone.

'Amy?'

She stops.

My old eyes close as I reflect on this girl. Her soul one of effortless giving. Her scent one of bright spring mornings and fresh linen. My old bones bruise now, ache, a forbearance of the sorrow to come.

His smile is one of cavernous appetites, white teeth and yet darkness seethes in the gaps.

'Henry?' She asks, her guard momentarily dropped.

'You dropped this.'

She takes on step closer, deft, moonlight cut into ribbons via bleak cloud. Her eyes focus on the rectangular object coiled in his fingertips, and her familiarity of it urges her to peer into her bag. She ruffles deep, certain of her own lucidity. I think you humans call it SNAP. Amy holds up the same mobile phone, same sheen of pink on the back cover, same blank slates on respective faces.

'Well, isn't that a shitter.'

His tone induces fear in her, the sound of a rabid dog unyielding, tempered by the eventuality of crisis. Amy ran. Fuck she ran.

To observe a human hunt is unfathomable to me. You of society and ethics and this spanning species of earth, air and the space above. Your minds delve in such black oceans that some of you never return the same. I suspect you call it madness, illness, an affliction that can only be cured with incarceration and chemistry or death. You deflate this poor old bird, that you resort to the murder of your own kin. You're not impressing anyone.

Henry, the dweller in darkness had scouted this shorter way well. He knew the times when the train on the green would pass over the arches leading out on to the marshes, had inscribed upon his own flesh, with melted plastic, the times community dog walkers took to their sacred and prompt rendezvous with cool air, peace before the onslaught of communion with their families.

I took to liquid night to observe the murder from above. This is no parable of hope, but a confessional from a very old owl. I know what you are thinking! Why don't you help Amy? Save her from the dark dweller. Well that would be fantastic wouldn't it? Your squabbles of evil and good are none of my business. I fly, eat, sleep, a piece of nature that hasn't rose above its purview as master of all it surveys. Owls didn't split the atom and set you on a path of self destruction. You opened up a Pandora's box upon the world and ask me where my humanity is? I'm not human. Henry, this dweller of the dark places is, the latest in a long line of individuals who have sown blood, guts and seed for a turmoil you brought upon yourselves.

You humans think you know so much.

You are nothing.

Pious, blinkered things.

This dweller of the dark places always knew how this night would end. He has rehearsed it a thousand times over in his mind. Took the role of the murdered in his bath, a half full tub of cold water, experimenting with mannequin hands around his throat, bleeding himself as the droplets fell into the water, watching it coalesce and shroud his view, immersive and sexual, a flashback to the days of the womb where he was safe and warm, away, away from the noise. Before release. Before the teeth of the world bit his hide, or his uncle.

You humans living in a filter of grey. Amy is surprisingly spry, if it gives you comfort. But this man, this Henry has waited too long for this. He wants her pain to end, so she may return to the womb, see as he does. The womb will house, keep those who are in pain beyond its walls. Henry's womb.

He's tenacious in his dichotomy, tripping her as she makes sleight across her own abyss. She lands on her nose, never nice, a deep warmth radiating across the sinuses. He gives her a moment of respite, he knows the feeling all to well, his uncle used to batter him to the linoleum of the kitchen floor and then ask for forgiveness.

Amy isn't done, pulling a key from fuck knows where she slashes Henry across the cheek, scolding him with cold metal. His retribution is absolute, taking her shaking hand and applying a nip to the pressure point in the wrist, dropping the key and taking her throat as his prize, squeezing her larynx with nuclear masculinity, pulling her to shaking feet. The river demands its prize and he obeys its calling, tossing his quarry into knee high depths. He follows suit, this man of liquid night, joining her in the cold malleable soup. She wants to escape but this is his arena now, this place of tepid flowing calm. He has prepared his body and soul for this. He takes the shiv from his jacket, slicing at quivering hands, falling onto her gut with gravity's lament, winding her, his water choking, his womb calling her home. He takes a moment as the blood escapes her, weakening, deflating. She crawls through purple water, gasping, yearning for home.

'I know your pain, you are clad in fortitude of the soul, and yet I know all you want is sleep, Amy.'

I rest on this wizened old birch, my old wounds heaving with age-old memory. Amy is resilient, home only a thought away. A place of pillowed nuance and security. The dark dweller wades through wet and boggy silt. His solid feet acting like the calling of a hungry pig, heavy boots creating an influx of unnatural air of flatulent reflux. His old boot hits a stone and he claims his prize from the water, clutching it like a newborn, smiling dutifully.

'You'll be safer here, in my womb.'

Amy's cry echoes across the marsh as Henry opens her skull with self righteous fervour. It only takes one strike, to send her to the womb, her husk, almost lifting above drifting water, an empty flotsam of once cherished things, love, consideration, laughter, snuffed out.

I observe Henry pulling himself from the bank, almost oblivious to his actions. A blank slate of emotion. I must admit, I feel unsettled. Your human world is a place I cannot interfere, and yet ... his sheer emptiness taints me. Me, this silly old barn owl.

Amy drifts on gossamer tides. She won't get far, She'll be seen by early morning walkers. The dogs will smell her. This doesn't sit right with me. They will smell empty meat. Cold hallowed, lifeless, flesh. She'll probably get as far as Salver's Bridge and hit the foliage. Jetsam of shit and broken branches.

I sit on my old birch throne. This cantankerous old bird, nearing his own demise. I scan the pathway in which the initial assault took place and look for the only thing I can think of which will tip the universe in Amy's favour. Proud old twat bird. There, in the grass, a glimmer of something benign to me and yet ridiculously poignant to others it may concern. I fall from from the tree, through liquid night and grab the key from wet grass. Up, up you silly old twat. The scent of blood is rife, a tainted blood you humans could never comprehend. And yet, across the surface of the metal I can smell spring mornings and fresh linen - Amy.

There is no one about when I drop the key on the doorstep. That's probably for the best. But it is the best I can do. I have no place in your lives. Well, we shouldn't do. You are fantastic things, you humans, and yet you fail to see the predators amongst your own kind. Silly humans. Oh, I love you but really. I am a beast of the night, I kill to survive, to eat, and yet in your domain you fail to see the monsters that lick your windows.

I'll perch on this old elm at least until Amy's grandmother wakes. I feel bidden. Henry's blood will taint that key. They'll find him, rest assured. They won't know how the living shit how it got there, but what can I say, us animals, sometimes, in moments of solidarity can perform miracles. But these are the best miracles - unknown, majestic. Not ones of destruction and sickness. If this old bird can see the wood for the trees, then surely you silly bastards can.