An owl so white it reminds me of an old sage

i finished this and the sky opened and the rain started to pelt down outside my window. am requesting for comments on this one if you will. thank you.

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It is almost 2am as I find myself, sitting on the toilet bowl, reading Neil Gaiman’s “Fragile Things”. I had come to a chapter titled “October in the Chair”, a tale of a gathering of the twelve months of the year. He wrote this story for a children's book "The Graveyard Book" and dedicated it to Ray Bradbury. It won the 2003 Locus Award for Best Short Story.

In it, the months take turns to tell their stories and the one who sits in the chair tells his story last. The months remind me of Neil’s infamous cast from his Sandman series. One particular month, June, is the exact persona of his creation, Delirium.

It is October’s turn to be in the chair and he has jumped ahead of the rest to tell his story. It is a ghostly tale of a boy who has run away from home and a ghostly boy who made friends with him.

I am mildly spooked and the next thing I know, I am sitting by my laptop at almost 2am, selecting the “Century Gothic” font. How apt, I think, because the name suggests something dark and unlikely while the fatness and roundness of the font proves to be mysterious and in a way, singularly mad and surreal.

Suddenly, I remember an image that has haunted my memory since I was a child. An image I have seen before but which I cannot recollect where from. It is of yellowish-brown brick walls and steps… staircases that are winding and leading up, down, centre, everywhere. They remind me of an old castle I had visited in London, where a certain queen was locked up, insane before being executed. I don’t remember where that is.

There is a man dressed in a white coat, with a long coattail looking at me. He is on one of the winding staircases. He smiles at me. It is neither an evil nor a kindly smile. He wants to beckon me forward with that smile. I don’t have to move. My eyes are already following him and accompanying that, the spirit of my soul.

He moves about this bizarre scene. The staircases head higher and higher, and he climbs up and up… but as he reaches the final step, you see he is really at the bottom. I do not understand.

A white owl flutters past my vision. It is beautiful. So white, almost like an old sage but it is an owl. The man, without taking his eyes off me, holds out an arm and the owl – I thought it had flown past me to the left – flies to it from my right.

I am filled with a confusion so heavy it settles on me and seeps through me; I am suffocating.

The wind outside my window is chilly. I feel a sense of trepidation. Something is happening but I don’t know what. I feel myself being trapped and surrounded in something eerie and frightening, a half-forgotten dream remembered, a nightmare that is taking shape in my mind and in the depths of my inner recesses. I remember it because I was there. And yet, I have never been in that realm. What is this that is happening and why am I recollecting memories that I have never owned?

Suddenly, I realise there is someone behind me. It is watching me as I type, and edging forward, closer to me. Just behind my right shoulder it stands, looking more closely at the screen where my words are appearing.

“I don’t know who it is…” it reads as I type, “I don’t know who it is…”

Outside the wind is blowing colder. I cannot decide if I am frightened. Because, “I don’t know who it is… is behind me.”

The man’s piercing eyes are now locked on me. He is still watching me. Worse, the white owl so white it looks like an old sage is watching me too. I wish I can break free from them. And I realise I have tried to break free from their locked grasp on me since I was a child. Now I remember I have even tried to search for the man and the owl so white it reminds me of an old sage. But nobody I spoke to remember them. Nobody at all, even though I can swear I was not alone when I encountered them.

The yellow-brick walls seem to be closing in on me. And the winding staircases are driving me to the edge of my mind. The man is upside down now. And so is the owl so white it reminds me of an old sage.

What will happen if I fall over? Perhaps I’ll find myself standing beside the man and his owl so white it reminds me of an old sage. And I’ll be watching this person sitting by her table, at almost 2am in the morning, with the chilly winds icily blowing outside, typing away the words that are being whispered to her. I am watching her and I am watching my own reflection behind her, as I edge myself forward, closer to her, just behind her right shoulder I stand, to look more closely at the screen where her words are appearing. I look at myself and myself looks at I. And on, she types, not knowing, not believing, not daring to breathe and understand.