About This Work

A spirit beyond belief. They called her "ghost". She was the biggest owl in the land, yet did not bully the others. She could fly the highest, yet spent her time with the low-flyers. She could hunt the best, yet would always share her catch with the rest. She led her kind, which were few, to inadvertently protect help the villagers. She kept other harvest eating animals at bay. Her appearance alone scared off outsiders with nefarious intentions. No one knew where she came from, but the locals say she had always been... for generations. Some say it was she that birthed the entire village eons ago. Abruptly one dawn she did not return to her nest, situated at the top of the tree which was in the very center of the village. The villagers looked to the skies for days. Saddened, they began placing pieces of gold at the base of the tree. They did this every Saturday for a year. On the evening of the 1 year anniversary of Ghost's disappearance, a little girl was walking by the tree. A massive gust of wind blew through the center of town. She heard a "hoo-hoo" from the top of the tree. She immediately looked up and saw a white shadow. This ominous shape floated from the top of the tree onto the ground. The little girl rushed over and just when she was about to cry, she noticed the shape was not the great big owl, but rather a bundled piece of linen that had blown over from one of the villager's drying line. It laid on the ground in such a beautiful shape. The most ghostly shape. The shape of the great big owl. She then realized the great big owl was truly gone from the physical realm. However, from then on, every year on the anniversary of Ghost's disappearance, somehow, someway, another villager's piece of linen blows off their drying line up into the sky to the top of the tree and then to the base as if Ghost is saying, "I am still here."