Melody of Bad Prophecy

As a kid, I was a pet child of my uncle. My uncle’s favourite pastime was the hunting of flying games with a catapult. One day he killed a strange bird called an owl. My uncle offered the dead bird to my friend and I. We roasted it badly but we ate it nevertheless. Later I learnt that an owl is an evil bird with the ability to prophesy human demise.

The owl is indeed evil even from the way it looks. It has a round concave face that resembles the inner surface of a piece of broken ceramic pot. The eyes are horrifyingly round and too big for a bird. Even with these eyes, it has a bad vision in the day time and the best vision in the night. It is the reason why it easily gets killed in the day time. Its beak, rather than pointing straight forward curves backward to point at its owner. Most birds like the canary, robin, nightingale and many more sing beautiful melodies. In contrast, the owl has one of the most groveling and horrifying cries.

As a kid, I have, a couple of times experienced an owl heralding the death of a neigbour and the sad event came to pass. In most of these cases, it perches on a tree around the house. Early this morning, December 21 at about 2pm, I woke up to hear the bizarre sound of an owl on the top of our roof as there was no tree anywhere close to our house. It appears my landlord also heard the sound and bravely came out. The sound of him simply opening the door chased the bird away.

If somebody was going to die in the house, I feared that it might be me. I was the only person in the house that is sick. Though I walk around and do the daily routine of life, I knew that I was ill. Coincidentally, my mum died one day after today in 2005. I was terrified by this coincidence of events. I just prayed and said to God, “if is see the next day then fine. But if I don’t see it, I pray you my soul to take.”