The owl I owe a favor to

I owe an owl a favor. The owl knows it. I know it. We arrived at this agreement in May, on a night when I needed something the owl could provide and the owl was in a position to provide it on the understanding that some future evening, when it suited the owl, the owl would call in the debt.

The owl has not called.

I have been waiting since May. It is now October. I have stood outside on multiple evenings and offered, in the general direction of the trees, that I am available. I have made a small clearing in my schedule. I have learned the names of three more owls in case the original owl was being modest and the favor required a referral. I have purchased a slightly nicer kind of mouse, in case the favor turned out to be culinary.

The owl is, I think, savoring this. The owl is, I think, holding the favor in reserve the way I might hold a coupon I am too embarrassed to use until I find exactly the right occasion. The owl is teaching me, I think, that the holder of a debt is in many ways more sovereign than the holder of the original advantage.

In the meantime I have noticed I have begun to listen better. To the trees, in the evening. To the small sounds of small creatures going about their evenings. To the careful, patient silences between sounds, which I had not previously known were full of anything at all.

If this is the favor — if the favor is that the owl wanted me to listen, and arranged the waiting so that I would have to — then I am happy to consider the debt repaid. I would also, if the owl is reading this, like to formally acknowledge that I do not get to decide that. The owl decides.

I will keep the mouse cold.