Phone Messages

This prompt came from creativewritingprompts.com. (Number 96.)

You come home and check your phone messages. You get to your third message and freeze. Begin from there.

I tried my hand at this prompt, and what came out was a little longer than usual. The point of the prompt is that it can go anywhere. This is where mine went.

Iz.

 I had made my deadline. My story was at the printer’s, my editor was off my back, and I was finally free to enjoy a nice, relaxing Thanksgiving. As soon as I shut the door to my apartment, I locked it and sank against it with a happy sigh.

Throwing off my coat, I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer. I twisted the cap off with my teeth as I checked the messages on my answering machine.

The first was from my mother, asking me to fly to Colorado for the holiday. I saved it, just in case, thought I was leaning no. Colorado’s cold.

The second one was from the Red Cross. I deleted it. I had given blood three weeks ago.

On the third message, I froze.

“Bill,” said the machine. “It’s Kitty. You’ll never believe…I found one. Here in Florida. It’s in a tree out behind the cabin. It’s made its home, it’s not going anywhere. You have to get up here, Bill.”

When we were kids, Kitty and I lived four houses apart. She used to call me in the middle of the night to tell me she’d trapped a giant cockroach in a jar or that there was a purple-eyed lizard on the outside of her bedroom window. We snuck through the thick bramble of northern Florida hoping to catch sight of snakes or armadillos or wild turkey. Once we sat in a tree long enough and quietly enough for Kitty to sketch a picture of a doe and her two fawns. We kayaked through creeks to spot snapping turtles and alligators. Once a manatee nearly flipped me.

We had lots of pictures. Kitty used to make collages out of them. When Facebook got popular, she had more photos than any of my other friends, and almost none of them were of her.

She and I hadn’t talked as much recently. We haven’t lived in the same town since high school. After we graduated, I went to Eckerd down in St. Petersburg and never left. Kitty went to Florida State. Her parents divorced, and my dad died, and everybody moved, so Kitty and I don’t spend summers together anymore. The last time I saw her was at my dad’s funeral nearly two years ago, her hair cut short and the ever-present camera around her neck. She took it off to hold me while I cried.

I wasn’t sure what surprised me more – Kitty’s voice on the answering machine or the message she left. At any rate, I called her back and told her I’d drive up to St. Augustine the next morning.

When we were kids, Kitty was obsessed with catching sight of a Miniature Elton Owl. It was a tiny owl, so rare that for years scientists doubted its existence. British explorer Rupert Elton first wrote about it in 1805, but no one could actually verify its existence until nearly 100 years later. It was hard even then for wildlife experts to catch glimpses of them. These days they’re disappearing thanks to climate change and development. Most scientists say they’re gone from the state, having moved up into Georgia and South Carolina.

Kitty always wanted to see one. Her grandfather had a cabin in the woods near St. Augustine. She and I used to camp out in the cabin in the summers so that we could sneak through the woods and find animals. Kitty would take pictures, I would make up stories in my head, and we’d both climb and swim and kayak and race each other to the highway. She had her sketchbook, I had my journal, and we both had cameras. What we didn’t have was air conditioning, so I eventually stopped going. But fall’s the best time of the year in Florida, and I was not about to miss my only chance to see a Miniature Elton Owl.

I pulled into the driveway of the cabin around noon the next day. Kitty’s truck was nowhere to be seen. She had said she might be out getting groceries when I arrived, but I should let myself in.

The cabin mostly looked the same as I remembered it. There was still a fan rather than an air conditioner, and a glass hummingbird still hung from the pull chain. There was the same flowery couch, smelling more strongly than ever of mothballs, though there were three throw pillows on it rather than the four I remembered. In both small bedrooms were the same single beds covered with the same old-fashioned quilts which we could never sleep under because of the heat. The hardwood floors still creaked under my shoes. There were a few changes. The paint was peeling from the walls and the wood on the furniture was more worn. The windows were closed which had never been the case in the summer. The bookshelf also held more books than I remembered, some clearly textbooks from Kitty’s college days.

I put my duffel bag in the bedroom where Kitty’s stuff wasn’t and went to the kitchen to look for food. I was making a pot of tea when Kitty walked in the front door carrying a bag of groceries.

She looked almost the same as I remembered – same short sandy hair, same strong tanned legs, same sunburn. She gave me a hug and asked me what I wanted for lunch.

“So where’s the owl?” I asked as she made grilled cheese sandwiches.

She pointed outside the window. “In the borough underneath the tree with the twisting roots. See the one? It’s asleep right now. You should have come last night, it kept hopping along the branch. It was as excited to see me as I was to see it.”

I peered out the window. The tree in question looked particularly boring next to the majestic oaks dripping with Spanish moss and the palm trees wafting in the breeze.

“Are you going to write a story about it?” asked Kitty.

I turned back from the window. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I think you should,” said Kitty. “A Miniature Elton spotted in Florida? That’s big news.”

“Only for the scientists,” I said, “and they already know.”

“No, they don’t.”

“You haven’t told them?” I said, surprised.

“I haven’t told anyone,” said Kitty. “Just you.”

I couldn’t imagine why that would be. I watched as Kitty put two sandwiches on a plate. “Want to eat on the back porch?” she asked. “The table’s covered in pictures.”

We sat in the rocking chairs on the back porch and ate. She asked me how the newspaper was doing. I asked her how her parents were doing. I told her my mother moved to Denver. Kitty said Denver was cold. I said Mom loved mountains. Eventually we fell silent.

“Why did you tell me about the owl and not your scientist buddies?” I asked eventually.

She shrugged. “You and I always used to look for these when we would stay here as kids. Scientists who want to find them go to Georgia.”

“Then what are you still doing here?” I asked.

She smiled. “Do you wanna leave this place?”

She had a point. It was peace to sit out on her back porch and listen to the birds and the frogs and the wind. Rationally  I’m sure there’s a place in Georgia this serene, but somehow I doubt it.

“Of course you do,” said Kitty, interrupting my thoughts. “Mr. Big Shot Newspaper Man.”

“Not that Big Shot.”

“Yeah, right. Tell me where you wanna go. Atlanta? New York? You wanna write for the New York Times?”

“Me? In the cold?”

I spent the afternoon on the couch under the fan. I read the latest Danielle Steele book. Then I read one of Kitty’s bird watching books. Then I lay on the couch and looked at the ceiling. I thought about checking my email, but I doubted Kitty had Internet here, and I really didn’t want to ruin this antique moment.

Kitty poked me awake at six. “You missed it fly away, you dunce.”

I sat up blearily. “I thought you said it hopped on the tree branch.”

“Not all night. I has to hunt. Never mind. It’ll be back early tomorrow morning. I’ll set an alarm and wake you up.”

I took a shower and fell asleep under one of those antique quilts for the first time. Or was it the second? Had I ever slept in this cabin during the winter? Yes, I’d stayed here once part of Christmas break in fourth grade. Was this the same quilt I’d slept under there? I pressed my nose against it. Something about the soft scent was familiar.

Kitty woke me up at four thirty the next morning. I stumbled bleary-eyed onto the back porch and looked at the tree.

There were no man-made lights anywhere, just light from the moon and dozens of stars spread out over the sky. I could just make out the owl on the branch.

It looked like a pinecone shaped bunch of feathers, only visible because it was slightly lighter in color than the tree and seemed unable to hold still. I leaned over the porch railing to see the little guy better.

“Here,” whispered Kitty. She turned on the dimmest of the porch lights. Even then, the owl ruffled its feathers and seemed to glare at us in irritation. Now, though, I could see it. It was barely taller than my first and extra fluffy. Its feathers were almost the same brown as the bark behind it, with some black spots peppering its wings and head. Its large eyes were amber, and it had a dead lizard clamped in its tiny beak. The owl sidled back and forth on the branch like an awkward adolescent boy unsure if he wants to sit close to the girl he likes or not.

“Why would I go to Georgia when I can find one here?” whispered Kitty. She sank into one of the rocking chairs without taking her eyes off the owl. I sat as well.

For a long time we watched the owl as it moved on the branch and tried to eat the lizard which was a little too big for it. Eventually it downed its meal. It blinked its big eyes several times and then ruffled its feathers before spreading its wings and gliding down to the ground. It tottered into its borough and disappeared from sight.

Neither Kitty nor I moved. We sat silently in the rocking chairs listening to the frogs and waiting for the sun to come up.      

A/N: There is no such thing as a Miniature Elton Owl, but all other animals I mention are native to that part of Florida.