Photograph: Michal Hlavac/Unsplash A white owl perched in a tree with brilliant green leaves. Its yellow eyes glowed as it stared down at the woman lying on sanguine dirt. She was motionless, but the owl watched her closely, tilting its head slightly. The sky was blood red, as if the world was ablaze, but there was no fire in sight. Someone’s watching me. Althea’s eyes flew open in a panic. She sat abruptly, her heart pounding in her chest as fear gripped her throat. The owl in the tree shifted as if it was commanding her attention. Startled, Althea looked up at the bird. It simply gazed down into her eyes with the same contemplative stare. Where was she? How did she get here? Althea tried to remember the events that brought her to this moment, face to face with this dazzling creature, but she couldn’t retrace her steps. Althea examined her surroundings. The green leaves of the tree were in sharp contrast with the sky. The white of the owl against all the red made it look like an...
Photograph: Sourabh Panari/Unsplash I didn't know what to do, but I knew I couldn't go on much longer. It had been years since I felt...right? Normal? I don't know what word fits. I just know that it had been years since I experienced it. Maybe never. My life was good, envious. Yet, despite all that, I couldn't stop the despair. The sense of impending doom. The feeling of unease. On paper, I was healthy. Everything was in the appropriate ranges and ratios. Except maybe my weight, but who wasn't a bit chunky in modern times? Pounds aside, my bill of health was snow-white. But that's only according to the things that can be measured. The things that we know to count. The things that technology is capable of measuring. But what about everything else? Numbers unseen, unknown, and unknowable? How was I in terms of those? I have no way to prove it, but I was deathly ill in the realm of the unquantifiable. Somewhere deep inside of me was a pit, a void. I could sense th...