coo (open)

[Will Andrews]

I'm being incredibly mature today.
I don't have any letters, any friends or family to send letters to even. Well, I'm sure I do but it's been so long that I no longer have any idea where I'd find them or what I'd write to them about.
I think wistfully for a moment of Addie and Row, of the jumbled mix of memories and blinding affection and how great it would be if I just ran into them or something. But my sister is probably dead, if I remember everything about her and her circumstances correctly. Row is probably settled somewhere nice with a husband and two point four kids and barely even remembers that boyfriend she had when she was a kid who just disappeared like he did.
I'm probably not meant to be in their lives anymore, if they're even still alive. Unless fate has other ideas of course, which I sort of hope that maybe it does.

Anyway though - because that is extremely depressing and not like me at all - so what if I don't have any letters? So what if I don't have any contacts?
Who needs them?
I'm going to do the mature sensible thing and hang around in the post office, resolutely ignoring the employee behind the desk who keeps glancing over at me strangely, probably wondering by now whether I actually have a letter to send and whether or not I'm going to leave any time soon.
I have been here quite a while.

I like owls, I think defensively, looking over at them with a bright smile.
I do like owls. They are lovely little creatures...apart from when they bite you, but I think that's only happened to me once and I was eleven and it was one of those surly, uppity Hogwarts owls that wasn't very tolerant at all when I leapt up excitedly and knocked a jug of pumpkin juice over it.
I grin again, as I usually do when something random like that pops up in my brain.
I do remember quite a lot now, and I have largely recovered every important event in my life so far, but it's the little details and small anecdotes such as those which will suddenly leap into the foreground and make me happy.
I'm so elated by this that I grin at the nearest owl - a rather big, brown one - and stroke my finger against the cage to try and get it's attention.
It refuses to want to play with me, so I say knowledgeably to it, "Coo."

Is it possible for owls to look at a person with disdain?
I think this one is looking at me like 'you're an idiot'. It could be one of those surly uppity sort of ones, it is holding itself very straight...but all owls do that, I guess. I don't know, maybe it's just pompous.
So I just sigh, and shake my head at it.
"You won't win many friends with that attitude."
Ah, now I'm talking to owls. Oh dear me.
Maybe I've been in here a bit too long.

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[Hayley McMicken]

I used to have an owl. My first owl ever was a nice Tawny one. Upon the arrival of my Hogwarts letter when I was eleven, my parents bought me an owl in celebration. About six or so years later, he died of old age. It was sad really, he had always been a good owl, but it wasn’t so sad. It was after all just an owl. A couple of years later I got a new owl. This one was an eagle owl. A stupid bird it was, but it was my bird, so I didn’t mind. I named him Fred. Just a few weeks ago, Fred never returned from one of his nightly hunts. As he has not returned, I must assume he flew into a tree or something, broke his wing, and couldn’t carry on. One might wonder, how can this happen? Owls are natural fliers, shouldn’t they know better? But this was not so, because as I’ve said, Fred was stupid.

I didn’t really need an owl. My first one, I just had because my parents got it for me, and Fred I had for work related purposes. Now that I was jobless, there was no reason for me to have an owl, and with that I was perfectly fine. I never really liked owls anyways. However, on the rare occasions I did need to send a letter. Now that I no longer had an owl, I had to go to the post office in Hogmeade.

As I entered the first things I noticed, was not the immense amount of owls, but a guy who appeared to be talking to an owl. That’s odd to say the least. Out of curiosity, I walked over to him, and asked, “Don’t mind me asking, but are you talking to an owl?” I asked. It might have been rude, but I was just too curious not to ask. Besides, this guy was a complete strange. When would I ever see him again? Never probably.

[Will Andrews]

Silly owl...
I think the owl is actually vaguely familiar. I don't know, it's those dark eyes and the tight posture...it probably reminds me of a family member because that's what I remember about most of them, even if many of my distant family do not have names and faces anymore.
Well, I surely hope that they do, but not in my memory.
Hm...I think he reminds me of Theodore, but I don't remember who Theodore is...
I shake my head. I'm sure he must be someone. I'll find out at some point maybe. Or it might just suddenly fly right into my head and that'll be quite marvellous. I do so like it when random tidbits like that pop up.

I'm still tapping my forefinger idly against the little strip of metal on the bars of the cage when I hear the door open.
I turn to smile at the new patron vaguely, before looking back towards the owl. It's been quite empty in here all the time I've been here. It's either a coincidence and it's just a slow day for sending letters, or I've somehow scared everyone away.
At least now that there's someone else here the guy behind the counter can stop looking at me like I'm going to kill his precious owls or some such.

But then the new patron talks to me and I supress a grin immediately, even before I process what she's said.
I'm half-expecting the man behind the counter to draw a wand and point it at me until I leave, especially now. People don't seem to like it if you hold social occasions in stores or other public places, or so I've figured out in my time here on this earth.
"Ah yes, I am..." I nod with a brief smile, "I like owls."

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[Hayley McMicken]

“Its figures.” I said trying not to laugh. When you walk into a store with owls, and a guy looks like he is talking to himself, it must be that he’s really talking to an owl. The reason for that is simple. It’s weird, but understandable, if you’re all alone and talking to yourself, but not if you’re in a room full of owls. It just makes so much more sense to talk to the owls. Then at least the owl might be listening. It just has to be like that.
It became even harder not to laugh as he said professed his liking for owls. I didn’t particularly like them, seeing as they’re just birds. What’s not to like, and what’s there to like? Nothing, and because of that, I was curious as to what he liked about them. “So you like owls?” I asked, in surprise. “Um, what exactly to you like about them?” I asked curiously.
As much as I wanted to laugh, I knew I shouldn’t. Stores didn’t like when people did. In fact, they seemed to prefer when people remain silenced. If not talking was hard, then not laughing must be a whole lot harder. I was surprised that U had managed to hold in my laughter for this long. Any moment now, I felt as if I would burst out in laughter.

[Will Andrews]

"Does it?" I ask vaguely.
I could have been talking to myself, but I don't often say 'coo' to myself because I speak people and not bird.
I wish I could speak bird. Then maybe this owl here would not ignore me like it is now, or look at me with disdain like it was doing before.
So maybe it does figure that yes, I really was talking to an owl. It's nice that she's so accepting over that fact. Maybe I'll tell her that, maybe not though because then she's gone on to say something else.

"That's a good question," I say contemplatively, tilting my head to one side as I think about the answer, and then back to the other side.
I've never really thought about why I like owls. I just like animals. I like cats and dogs and birds and toads and snakes and rats and...yeah, I like animals. I particularly liked all of those interesting little things that we got to look at in care of magical creatures. They were very cool.
I think owls are some of my favourites though, because you get all the different types. The uppity, pompous ones and the small hyperactive fluffy ones and...it's like all the variety between people.

I think I like owls because I associate them with good things too. I associate owls with Hogwarts and random little letters and for some reason, my sister. I think Addie had an owl, actually, and that's probably why. I also think that Finley killed it when he was in a foul mood once, and I felt very sorry for the poor thing.
I decide to use this as a plausible explanation rather than trying to condense that lengthy, rambly thought process into a sentence.
"I have good owl associations," I nod sincerely, "Do you not like owls? Because if so, I think a post office is quite an inappropriate place for you to be."
I add a large grin at the end of this sentence so it's very clear that I'm joking.