Extraordinary –> Ordinary

(untitled as of yet)

They were not cries for help, but rather grunts of physical exertion. Walking along in the woods, enjoying the clear autumn day, Peter heard these noises from somewhere above, in the trees. He looked up and saw a girl stuck there.

Her head was lodged in an owl’s hole in the large oak that stood before him. She had a hand on either side of where her head would be, pushing against the trunk of the tree.

He stood awhile and looked up the fifty or so feet between them. And remembered, vaguely, a distant fear of heights.

Her body protruded perpendicularly from the trunk of the oak and held, horizontally, unsupported. It tightened with every effort of freeing her head. Loosened briefly, tightened again.

He did not consider helping her (the simple effort of thinking this was too much) and so lowered his head, turned down his gaze, and shuffled again through the damp leaves.

When he returned an hour later, following the trail back the way he had come, the low hoot of a common owl made him stop once more under the oak tree.

It was perched on a branch in the figure of a girl, resting on her right calf. Peter looked more closely and thought he saw her knees twist into knots, thought he caught a slow change from the folds in her clothing to the lines of the oak bark.

He stared at the girl, as if petrified, then, suddenly seized by some sense of urgency, hurried off in the direction of home.

The owl swiveled its head towards the hole now sealed by the girl. It raised one wing slightly, then settled it back into place.