One night, an owl poked its head out of its tree hole. The rain was weakening into a manageable shower.
Hungry as it was, it stretched its wings and flew to the perches where it could find prey.
It imagined its first meal of the night, how it couldn’t wait to crush their prey and swallow it whole. The thought made it positively giddy.
Now the owl had a very good sense of hearing, in fact it was adept at listening for even the slightest hints of movement to catch their quarry.
As it flew over a human village it heard a familiar sound.
The unmistakable cadence of ‘kik kik kik’.
The owl would have ignored it as it always had, but it was curious and the rain was starting to get stronger. The elder owls told the young that these creatures are harmless to their kind, only targeting humans. They described in detail the long tongue, perching on the roofs of human houses and their confusing sound.
Closing its eyes, the owl concentrated to find the source of the sound, remembering what it should be looking for.
After a few moments it was confident that it located where the creature would be.
So, it stayed by the window and watched the events unfold.
There were three humans sleeping side by side. One child, a woman that was clearly pregnant and a man.
Even through the noise of the raindrops the owl could clearly hear the sound of some liquid dropping on the stomach of the woman. The owl saw her stand up and put a dipper where she was. The woman moved and found another place to sleep, but again the owl could hear the same sound of droplets hitting her stomach in a familiar tempo.
And then the owl’s ears piqued.
There it was. ‘kik kik kik’
It was almost like a whisper, as if the sound traveled great distances to settle on their ears.
The owl’s blood ran cold.
The man and the child both woke up to the sound and almost through instinct the man grabbed a bolo and rushed outside.
The owl flew to the front of the house to see what the man would do.
The man shouted “If you don’t leave my family, I will go to your house tomorrow!” All the while swinging his bolo through the rain.
And in an instant, it stopped, the owl could only hear the pitter-patter of the drizzle as it washed over the midnight moon.
The creature left, unable to get its meal, and the owl scoffed and told itself that wasn’t going to happen to it tonight.
As the owl flew to its hunting grounds it wondered.
Did the man really know where the tiktik’s house was?
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Written by Karl Gaverza
Copyright © Karl Gaverza
Story inspired by a story told by Gil Geolingo
Tiktik Illustration by Gil Geolingo
