I'm up at an unfortunate hour tonight because I had a terrible dream:Look! he shouts at me. We are getting out of my car and approaching the house I lived in when I was in high school. It's a house that always makes me feel unsafe. I look at him, and he's pointing up in the trees.
My eyes aren't adjusting. I can't quite open them. It's suddenly too dark, and I can't see what he's so excited about. He seems afraid, but also interested. "Look!"
I hear feathers and rustling and feel something swooping down on us. He grabs me and pulls me to the ground, and my vision adjusts just enough to see an owl attacking us. He's covering me, but the owl is coming down, and it's going to get him, and then I know it will get me because I can't see it well enough to fight it.
It's a graceful metaphor: the bird of prey, looming; his fascination with it, and my inability to see it coming and fear of being unable to ward it off.
