The Owl That Came Out Of My Dream

I was dreaming something terrible, but couldn't see what it was. There were numbers whirling in ever increasing density, casting obscurity on the images of my dream. I can't recall to this day what I was dreaming about; just the numbers with their dervish intensity. It had all started like the large, fat plops that herald the coming of a summer rain shower. The numbers splashed down in ones, then twos, then ten at the time until they quickly became a deluge which morphed into the giant rotating beast that confronted me now. It was draining my brain and I just wanted it to stop. There was a certainty that something terrible was going on behind those numbers, but I couldn't see what.

I watched the spinning wheel of numbers in horrified silence until an owl appeared, growing larger rapidly. A great black thing, his saucer-like orange eyes bored into mine as he dove straight for me. Flying swiftly and arrow straight, the bird sliced through the numbers. Their frenzied dance interrupted, they disappeared until only the owl filled my mind's eye. Those eyes bored into and through me with the owl's passing, the chill wind of his wings touching my core. Coming awake abruptly, I contemplated the dream. The thought crossed my mind that it might be more than a dream and something horrible was being foretold, but I quickly nixed that idea with the logic that I hadn't seen an owl in our woods in a very long time. It couldn't possibly happen if I didn't see an owl.

The next morning, driving to work, I was about a mile from my driveway when a dark shape ahead in my lane caught my attention. Thinking it was a buzzard I slowed down to a crawl in case he decided to take off in front of me, but no, as I passed in the left-hand lane to avoid the great black monster, it turned its head to regard me with the eyes of the giant owl from the night before.

I have never seen that owl before or since. He was as black as a buzzard and his eyes were a huge burning orange. I watched in my rear view mirror as he took flight into the trees after I passed as though his message had been delivered. I would like to say that I know for sure why it was so important that I see an owl after dreaming of one, but can only assume that he was there because I didn't believe upon awakening that something terrible was going to happen. I still don't know what the numbers were hiding.