My Best Friend Gave to Me...

      Oh no.

       I can feel it settling in. My head starts pounding as millions of negative thoughts flow through my head like trout in a river. My breathing grows increasingly harder as I try to focus on inhaling through the nose, exhaling through the mouth. My hands are shaking with the ferocity of a city-destroying earthquake. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead.

       I fall to my bed as my limbs take on too much weight. My bones replaced by steel bars and my muscles are just concrete poured under my skin. My hair falls into my eyes but I have no time to think about it.

       In through the nose, I tell myself in my head. My inhalations sound like air exiting a balloon- which is how my self-confidence feels too. Out through the mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth. In through the…

       I come back after an indeterminant amount of time. I’m more tranquil now, but uneasy. Little spots of tears dot the lower lids of my eyes. I have to throw up but I am too heavy to lift myself off the mattress.

       I instead slide to the floor and crawl to the bathroom, hanging my head over the edge of the toilet and spill my dinner into the bowl. I curl up into a ball on the cold bathroom floor. The dull hum of the lights annoys me, but who cares anyway?

 ----

       “It happened again last night, didn’t it?” my friend, Andrea asks me. Andrea is usually the type to yell at me and call me stupid- has since we met my junior year of high school. In other words, Andrea is my best friend. She is worried about me lately. “Neil, I’m worried about you. These panic attacks have been happening way more frequent.”

       “I am fine,” I say in an exasperated way. I hate people worrying about me, “I just had too much to drink last night. Getting into the Christmas cheer,” I try to laugh it off.

       Andrea eyes the empty bottles of bourbon on my kitchen countertop with judgment in her eyes, “Yeah, I don’t doubt you had too much to drink, but I also have known you long enough to tell when you have had a bad experience with your mind.”

       “Do you want a drink or not?” I ask, hoping to change the subject.

       “Vodka and cranberry, but I have to run to my car for something really quick.”

       I pour Andrea a vodka cranberry- more cranberry since she has to drive later- and myself a bourbon on ice. I take a sip of the whiskey as she comes in carrying something under a festive cloth containing Christmas trees and snowmen. I hear rustling under it. My blood goes cold and my heartbeat increases as I imagine a big tarantula under there.

       “Merry Christmas, dumbass,” Andrea says while lifting the cloth to reveal a circular cage. I take a step back, ready to scream in anticipation of a massive spider being in my apartment. “I got you yourself. Oh and put these in your freezer.”

       I look past the little bars of the cage and see a tiny elf owl perched on a little bird stool. The cold box she hands me are frozen mice.

       “I am not an owl,” I say.

       “Shut the fuck up, Neil!” Andrea shouts, “You are totally an owl.”

       “Am not,” I counter. Andrea’s pale face reddens a bit from snapping at me. Her green eyes are watering with tears of comedy.

       “You look just like an owl! Everyone agrees.”

       We argue back and forth (mostly about if I do or do not look like an owl and the fact that there are now dead mice in my freezer) until Andrea says she needs to leave. “Take care of Neil Junior,” she nods toward the owl, “I’ll come by tomorrow.”

       “You named him after me?” I ask angrily.

       “He looks just like you,” she yells at me from her car, “Read the manual.”

       I go back inside and thumb through Your Owl and You, it tells me how, when, and what to feed him as well as indicating what to do to keep “Neil Jr.” healthy and happy. What am I supposed to do with a fucking owl?

       My phone dings. It’s a message from Andrea, “He will help you with your moods too.”

       I take a long look into the owl’s eyes. He gives me a look that either says “I love you,” or “I cannot wait for your demise.” I then go to the bathroom and turn on the light. I don’t look like an owl, my mind speaks inside.

--- 

       The little bird in the cage starts shrieking and clawing at the cage. It interrupts my immersion into an exciting scene of the book I am reading.

       “What?” I yell, “What do you want?” The book tells me that Neil Jr. is hungry.

       I go to the freezer and open the box. I gag violently. How the hell am I supposed to pick one of these slimy looking mice in ice up?

       The owl squeaks either in anger or excitation of what is coming. Maybe he is laughing at me as I wretch while trying to pick up the mouse, finally deciding on holding the extreme end of the tail. It sways back and forth like a pendulum between my fingers. Neil Jr. consumes it voraciously when I finally get the poor rodent inside the cage.

       The book tells me I should spend some time petting Neil Jr. so that he gets comfortable with me. I hold my hand into the cage to allow the elf owl to perch himself on my wrist. We walk over to the couch and I lightly pat his feathers. They are a lot softer than I imagined.

       The manual prefaces with an introduction on how owls have traditionally represented wisdom. They used to be seen as wise, old leaders of knowledge and power. He starts coughing.

           Panic erupts in my chest as I begin to think that this bird is going to die in my arms just hours after receiving him. The owl is gagging to my fear before he stops. A slimy ooze of bone and other mouse tissue falls into my lap. I almost vomit from my new pet gagging an owl pellet out onto me.

           I start to feel the first impressions of another episode coming on. Hands growing clammy, airway tightening. Heart drumming like a college marching band.

       Neil Jr. looks up to my face. I can see my reflection in those expressive eyes. He nuzzles his head into me. It has the effect of water being thrown onto a fire. My panic is replaced by tranquility and happiness, as well as adoration of the cute owl.

       Though I’d never admit it to Andrea out loud, my owl Christmas gift really did make me happier.