omen

On the evening of All Soul's Day, I was left alone in the house. With nothing to do aside from net surfing, the deepening night called me to cook food for dinner. I went down and I noticed that I forgot to switch on the lights downstairs. The tolerable darkness was illuminated by the lights coming from our neighbor's house so I just rushed down the flight of stairs. Some second elapsed, and I was startled by a terrifying eek-eek sound just behind the stereo shelf on the living room that my hearbeat thudded louder. The freakingly spooky stories through word of mouth and overheard conversations had started to materialize though I always label them implausible. Or was it much worse than I just thought of? The eek-eek sound reverberated again and this time, the unseen entity revealed itself. It was a bird. A black bird intruded on our house. This could mean an omen. A portent. A bad sign. Perhaps, the bird could be possessed by the disquieted spirits of our long-dead relatives. I know nothing. But one thing is for sure, I must make it go away.

I stomped my feet repeatedly to scare the bird but it jumped and tried to flee but to no avail. However, I cannot catch the brash and elusive bird because it moved too fast. My wild-goose chase ended when I cornered it inside our powder room. I quickly closed the door and it took me half an hour to finally seize the bird. I marveled at the bird in my hand because it doesn't look like an ominous creature. It has spotted plummage, and its real color was dark brown; the lower beak is reddish while the legs have long, slender toes. After I took pictures of the pitiful bird with my cellphone, I decided to end the horseplay by securing it firmly again on my hands so for it to not go away and cause another round of mess. I freed it outside and I hurled it expecting that it would take flight, but it didn't. Instead, it landed on the ground and walked briskly going to the looming grayness of the night. I was left there, puzzled and disoriented, wondering what kind of bird it was, I do not know. I came back in the house in deep thought. Before anything else, I went over to our altar and I hurriedly lighted the candles there. Our family always do this in accordance to the rites of the day of the dead, and we never forget to dedicate prayers. Hence, I was filled with hope that the evil presence around, if any, will be warded off.