Owls Peering Out from the Future

The night before last we heard a noise in the adjacent room as my family finished dinner. The room is in a state of unfinished renovation from a sun-room that may have housed a hot tub at some time in the one hundred seven year life of our small brick home. It has pieces of drywall and screws and tools and spray cans of insulation and a ladder and dust upon the floor. When we first heard the noise, we didn't know from where it was coming, but we quickly ascertained the general location and out I went with headlamp in hand to investigate. I was a bit nervous and excited, not sure what type of intruder I would encounter. I have had to battle bats in the past in a house in Vermont- a bat would visit our basement every February until it made its way upstairs one last time. I took the advice of my cousin who was a police officer in the Bronx and worked the night shift from 11pm to 7 or 8am and often had to answer calls from frantic citizenry about the bat in their apartment. My cousin said, "Dude, people would call all the time about these fucking things. Some cops won't deal with it, tell 'em it's not their job, but I always go. This is what you do dude. Bats just fly around in circles, the same path every time, so I would say, 'Hey, lady, you got a broom I can use? And I need a towel or a blanket or something.' And you watch where it is flying, like, in the room, and it goes around a few times and then you know where it's gonna go so you just whack it. That just stuns 'em, so they fall to the ground, then you throw the towel or blanket on it and stomp on it. Then they say, 'What am I gonna do with this now?' and I say, 'Listen lady, I took care of the bat, ok? Now you get rid of it.'" I took his advice, and it worked just like he said. Except I was wearing a motorcycle helmet, leather jacket, long wrist-covering ski gloves and a scarf, and I didn't have the nerve for or interest in stomping on it, so I carried it in the blanket outside and let it go. It flew into the night, and I haven't seen it since. So I was thinking of bats, when I went outside. When I shined the flashlight into the room, I saw a shadowy figure flying in the abandoned, half renovated mystery sun room. I thought, "Bat." However, my light suddenly came to rest on a feathered critter hiding between the glass door and some small size strangely angled drywall. It was not a bat. It turned toward me and revealed round yellowish eyes with large dilated pupils. It was a small owl. After looking it up in the bird book, I think it was a screech owl, either western or eastern. We are on the boarder of the two ranges here on the plains before the rockies. I quickly came back inside to tell my family, and when I went back outside, it spooked and flew out a high window through the lattice work and into the night. Owls are known to be powerful omens, either of bad or good, depending who you ask. Later in the night, I smelled an enchanting smell like incense and the presence of a being I've known before. Only time will tell what portent the owl brought from the future. There was a certain magic moving through life this week. The veil between the spirit and we so thin this time of year. I do my best to listen when an owl comes to visit.