this
week

     

 

 


First imagine two Emperor Penguins, or see two.

Now imagine, instead, that these are owls but of the same height as the penguins, so rather large owls, yet still with the sleekness of the penguins (i.e. not owl-style feathers).

Now imagine the ginger tones of a Cheshire cat, but blurred and softened so that in saturation the tones are like those of a heron: the tones of one of the owls appears so, while the other has the herons grey tones.

It's an afternoon. I'm somewhere that is a landscape. I'm on my way across a field. About 10m or so away, with a sense of wonder, I notice this pair of large, strange owls.

They have a stillness, as if in a photograph, yet they are there in the flesh like me. Almost speechless, pointing to them, I say to a friend, who as it turns out is standing a few paces away, 'Look, look, over there!

Whilst they don't seem to be moving, or floating, they are approaching, but before I know it they have passed, and yet are passing, as fast as I can turn my head, my glance following them.

As I look over my shoulder, I see with sheer surprise and increasing delight that the owls have morphed. Now they are as tall as a doorway. Rather than tall and slim, their bodies, well, actually just their feathers, have puffed out to the width of two doorways, but not the feathers on their heads, which now appear rather small in comparison. They are backlit, the sun shining through their fanned out feathers, as they head off across the field.

Although, from here (behind), I can no-longer see their owl eyes, I distinctly know that they are still these owls. What I can see resembles a mass of puffed out amorphous featheriness. Re-imagine the two owls now, instead of remote and strange, entirely comic, as if two very large ducks tails are running past and away. When they had first approached I could not see their feet, or legs, walking as such, but now, as these oversize and dazzlingly unlikely creatures make off, it is by way of unexpectedly large webbed feet that are not birds feet, although bird-like. Their feet are more like diver's flippers, yet with the flexibility of a real foot.

Amidst this pounding of flippers I realize that there are more of these startling creatures in the field, around 20 or so are now making-off in the ‘flipede’ rather than stampede. Looking on with incredulity, I’m also laughing. I then wake up and laugh again.