pet owl

start - I'm one step closer.

What ever happened to him?

I know I was about 5, maybe 6. That memory -

The back screen door cracked, leading out to the garden where the opossum hid in the blackberry bush waiting to scratch at my ankles. Starring at that bush. Then those two huge rats ran across the kitchen floor, sluggish as if they were sick. My mother on the kitchen counter yelling for me to join her.

I swear I had a pet owl, a great horned owl that could catch all the rats. It lived in the garage behind the wood panelling.

But my owl left me, and the rats kept running.

Then there was "dummy", the wooden figurine that would come alive at night. He danced for me until I grew scared and made my father take him away. Dummy was trying to find a way to get off that metal rod. I thought he would hurt me.

What were they fighting about and how come I don't remember my childhood?

Only distorted pictures race through my thoughts of a young boy dreaming of this day, the day that I would remember him. The moment I would realize how much I miss him and how much he is needed right now.

"It will be okay", he says, "you will see."