Fifty-Dollar Owl

At one of those overstuffed, hyper-lit furniture stores out in the suburbs where everything—oriental floor rugs and elephant sculpture and birdcage lamps—costs laughable amounts of money, I paid fifty dollars for a wooden owl. 

Now he’s (he?) in my home, beside the television, the big oversized television that cost me ten times as much as the wooden owl, the television that the young geek at the electronic store said was a deal—“hot”, he called it—the television that is the centerpiece of my entire home—entire life? So each time that I watch television now—do you want to know the Tuesday night programming? I can tell you Wednesday night too. Oh, you’re interested in Saturday afternoon? Not a problem. And Sunday—the owl watches me. In that way, I guess I’m his (his?) in-home entertainment system. Yeah, he’s flipping the channels on me, probably  wondering if there’s anything (anyone) better that he could be watching, something (someone) more interesting, more believable. He's wondering why it feels as if he’s already seen this one, this rerun, wondering how someone with my obvious lack of promise could possibly be cast in a starring role, wondering why there is so much boring crap occupying valuable air space these days, wondering why he isn’t out doing anything better on a Friday night; a Friday night when other beings—real beings—are out at parties, big parties with pretty girls and famous athletes and respected sea captains and war heroes and Hollywood stars, parties with live backyard music performances by soon to be legendary indie bands and miles of lush food and barrels of beverages and more pretty girls--sets of twins even--and then even more famous people, yes! So many famous people packing the jovial party place that the walls are bending outward—

His (his?) eyes are round, perfectly round, and deadly calm, brown straight through, the exact same brown color as his body and feathers and wings and talons. They—his eyes—don’t move or twitch, and wow it’s unnerving, creepy to the moon. I sit here, on the couch. And he sits there. And he just stares. He drills into me, penetrating my brain and feelings and haunts and past and ambitions and fears and insecurities about—

The fact that he doesn’t move reminds me that I don’t move much either. It reminds me that I’m static like him, that neither of us is going anywhere, doing anything— But back to this staring of his: it’s all he does. What a one trick pony. I can’t look at him for more than a few seconds before I look away. After that, it gets uncomfortable, awkward. So yes, I always look away first. Always. Try and beat him in a staring contest. Just try. I dare you. Maybe you’ll fare better than me. I’m winless against him. Oh he is so smug. I get the feeling that he’s proud of his undefeated streak, that he takes an enormous sense of joy out of rubbing his unblemished staring contest record in my fleshy face; my fleshy face that paid fifty dollars for a wooden owl that was supposed to liven up my living room, a wooden owl that was supposed to meet my deep-seeded needed to express myself, a wooden owl that has instead become just one more thing driving me completely cabin fever climbing the walls nuts—

Wow I need to get out.