What was wrong with the owls?
Why they behaved so strangely, did they make that terrible noise? It looked as if they gasped for air. Couldn't they breathe? I felt so worried they might be sick I woke up Carmen and pulled her by her robe to the patio. What if they were infected with some kind of disease? Carmen didn't only teach me about the benefits of all the herbs and how to prepare them but she told me about viruses, bacteria, and many tiny things floating through the air, living on us, touching us, and everything that surrounded us. They were even inside of me!
At first, I found it hard to believe. I never saw any of those things she told me about and the pictures in the books... she showed it to me but they didn't make it real. Who said it was true? I could make drawings of what I saw too but would anyone believe me? Painting wasn't difficult and she told me art is, just like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.
She borrowed me her special glasses, the ones she kept in the drawer of her desk, and as I wore them the world looked completely different. Suddenly the tiniest items were visible. I wasn't fully convinced as I returned the pair of glasses but she managed to make me see the world differently.
"Are viruses the bad guys?" I finally dared to ask her.
She didn't need much time to answer the next burning question I struggled with for a few days."
"Viruses are part of mother Nature. We can live in harmony with them or make them our enemies."
How to live in harmony with so many viruses she didn't tell but I assume hygiene and taking care of ourselves as a part of it just like respecting all life.
NaNoWriMo2020 source photo: pixabay.com
"Isa, look at them. Look closely. They are not sick, not dying. They are hungry. We need to feed them but we will separate them first."
Carefully she lifted the baby owls -the ones she called 'little screamers'- and placed them in different boxes.
"Come on over here, this is their food."
She lifted a mouse at its tail smashed it on a stone and fed it to her owl. Immediately it swallowed the entire mouse and stopped the 'gasping'.
"You see how satisfied it is? Now it's your turn to feed one. You can feed yours while I do the other chicks."
I hesitated. I never killed anyone or anything and those mice looked so cute.
"What keeps you? You want to let her starve for hunger?"
"Can't you do it?" I begged.
She observed me for a while and lifted my little Birca.
"If you want this little baby to be yours you have to feed it. If I feed it it's mine. The choice is yours. The only thing I know is I won't let her starve for hunger because of you, because she needs someone who looks after her till she is old enough to hunt herself."
Total amount of words: 2249
Prompt: none
I wrote 10,907 words
Not each part of this episode is published.
