Oddity

At my mother’s house, on the main wall of her kitchen, is a set of cupboards and cabinets. On top of the cabinets is an artificial potted plant. The plant looks like budding artichokes, dusty and odd-colored. It’s not green, but more gray and brown, and a dusty film covers the ridges of the buds. The pot looks like it is made of clay, a rusty brown color that fades into gray at the top. It’s not much bigger than the size of my head. An owl sits right next to it, just slightly smaller than the plant, eyeing me with a cockeyed expression. His black pupils, almost seem to shake in the round orbs of his eyes, his chest puffs out over the edge of the cabinet and no matter how I move he seems to be watching me, incredulously.

They appear to be a set, but I cannot understand how they relate to one another. It might help if I knew exactly what the plant is, some cactus perhaps, but instead I look at it and I remember that dreaded vegetable, the one that stabs my fingers through the thin produce plastic bags and I try to weigh and ring it up. Small strands of fuzzy plantlike fingers shoot out of the top and curl over, heavy with dust. But it’s the owl you always see first, looking at, eyeing you. An owl, always aware, perhaps most nosy, more predatory, than wise, and he’s feeling in the mood for more than artichokes.