​The Forest Has Ears and the Field Has Eyes, by Brian Howell

The Forest Has Ears and The Field Has Eyes by Hieronymus Bosch, Burgundian Netherlands, c. 1500

​The Forest Has Ears and the Field Has Eyes
 
I see and hear all about me
And about me sees and hears the Forest all.
 
She lies below, safe in the hollow of the tree.
 
Above, they sing or screech in the near-dark.
 
I am the duke of the Forest
In the Forest of the Duke
 
I am the evil observer, awake in your presence.
 
‘s-Hertogenbosch. The Duke’s Forest. The ears of the forest and the eyes of the field. Yes, I know you, how you operate, the painter thought, stepping over a broken branch, the crack an indictment of his human activity. 
 
Looking up, Jeroen saw the rather large owl perched on a dead tree, in a hollow, its swivelling head turning in the direction of Jeroen’s home, as if the animal, and not Jeroen, decided the route.
 
He tried to divert his mind. Tomorrow, I will take my nephews and their friends on a barge through the town. It will be a treat.
 
It was dusk, his favourite time of day; it also scared him a little, even at his advanced age. When the light was this dim, the natural shapes he saw started to change, aided especially by the agglomerations of weeds, which often presented themselves as pachydermal beings, the kind he had seen in others’ paintings and even tapestries. But beyond this, he noticed all manner of creatures, odd in themselves, in a way, foxes, snakes, bats, some insects, and sometimes he would see parts of their bodies transposed onto each other. Yes, he would actually see them. And sometimes they would parade in front of him and put on some performance or other, often a dance. He would not necessarily think of hell, rather of God’s creatures, but they would whisper to him to be careful, to trust his eyes and ears above all, but distrust others’, and to keep his counsel. Those earlier, more violent visions that he had had as a child, that had so often kept him and his brothers up late at night, had subsided to the point now where he was in almost complete control and did not consider them as what others might think of as an abomination. He had vowed long ago never to use his talent as an adult to scare or harm others, rather to warn.
 
Many times, however, these metamorphoses were harmless enough, as when, as a child, he mistook a tadpole for a small fish with a long tail. He had forever been playing around ponds in those days as often as not after being warned by his mother that such places were inhabited by devilish sprites. He realised eventually, of course, that it was just a way to steer the child away from natural as much as spiritual danger. Yet it did not stop him at night dreaming feverishly of every kind of benighted creature that inhabited the riverbanks or canal sides. 
 
As a boy during lessons, he would often be woken from some reverie by another pupil’s prank and, often as not, Jeroen was strangely grateful and would smile, like a simpleton, confusing his bully, who would turn away, at a loss. Yet, they knew him to be intelligent and soon he was capable of his own pranks, which bordered on the dangerous, when he eventually came around to exact mild revenge, such as dropping some semi-poisonous toad down another pupil’s neck.
 
“Wait,” he heard now. 
 
It had come from somewhere in the mid-gloom, but from where? And from whom, at this hour? He observed that the owl was still there, staring straight at him.
 
“You know nothing of me,” a voice said. 
 
Jeroen could not be sure where the sound was coming from. Hardly from the owl. But maybe from its direction. It was not as if he could see its mouth move, and couldn’t have, even in the near dark.
 
Then it came again.
 
“You’ve had an illustrious career, sir!” 
 
“Wha…?” was the only possible reaction.
 
“Oh, you have nothing to be modest about,” the owl asserted. 
 
There was no doubt now. 
 
“But I for one,” it continued, in high dudgeon, “resent your depictions of my brethren.”
 
“You mean owls?” Jeroen replied, trying not to contort his voice into a surprised squeal.
 
He was speaking now directly to the bird, but convincing himself someone was in the undergrowth throwing their voice, just like his friends had done in his youth, once.
 
“You have demonised us too long,” it went on, imperiously puffing out its chest in indignation.
 
“How so?”
 
“Come, come, sir,” it hooted. “You have had it in for us from the start!”
 
As it said these words, Jeroen was aware of how the last rays of the sun slipped away and cast the bush where the owl sat in its tree into shade and then of how a great number of birds, mostly owls, even types he had never seen before, swept in and took up various positions on the branches of the surrounding trees and bushes as if it had been planned like that. 
 
“Well, I am not really sure…” he began.
 
“Silence!” 
 
At this stentorian outburst, there was a general voicing of approval, through muttering and even a few chuckles, from all the birds around.
 
“Yes, you know what I, we, are talking about. Even going back to our sweet brother looking balefully out at the viewer as he is perched on the tree branch in that work dedicated to your namesake patron Saint Jerome. The rather tame-looking lion’s presence is as nothing compared to the threat given off by the owl. Even the fox has been sated and wants nothing to do with your little drama.”
 
“But how…”
 
“Silence! What is there to say that the bird on the opposing branch is not in its sights?”
 
“But… but…” uttered Jeroen in exasperation.
 
The master of ceremonies started to spread his wings in excitement, ignoring Jeroen’s protestations.
 
“The one that gets me is that cunning one in the The Adoration… that sidelong glance at the Baby. You had to do that, didn’t you? You couldn’t just let an Adoration be an Adoration! And you did it in paint not once, but twice!”
 
Jeroen had lost patience.
 
“Are we to go over all my painting like this? I’m an old man, and I have…”
 
“Let us see,” the owl continued, oblivious. “How many of your so-called paintings contain one of my brethren, in actual fact?”
 
Jeroen bristled at the pedantic addition of the last three words, but he did not have to think long.
 
“Almost… almost…”
 
“All! Almost all, I’ll give you that,” shouted the accuser, and cackles and calls of derision burst out all around the forest.
 
It was true. He had included one in almost every painting and in many a sketch.
 
I’ve had enough of this, he concluded. There’s no way out.
 
“Well, sirs,” he said, respectfully addressing the birds and all their other friends who had continued to gather during the interrogation. “I have really enjoyed speaking to you all.”
 
For sure, they could see through his lie, a state of affairs evidenced by a few cackles, he thought from wolves, in this instance.
 
“You have given me a lot to think on.”
 
This was followed by a muted hissing.
 
The owl looked suspiciously at him for a while, leading Jeroen to wonder if he was in danger, but finally he broke into a half-smile.
 
“We did not intend to trouble such a fine painter as yourself. Please continue with your invaluable work and think of us, but not as lowly owls,” the leader said, seeming to soften his stance drastically.
 
Hah, Jeroen thought, nevertheless, Not so lowly. More like high-and-mighty.
 
“Rather,” the leader continued, “think of all of us, as you see us, like this, in all our variety and seeming menace, and, of course, beauty.”
 
“I will, I will,” Jeroen acknowledged reluctantly, half-turning away to see a sea of stippled eyes glowing at him through the gloom. 
 
He turned fully away now, only to look back one more time, and realise that, without their having made one sound, they were gone, the wood having meanwhile reverted to the comforting buzz and accompanying eerie susurrations of those unseen monstrous creatures, the crickets, lizards, moths, even the cicadas, who all continued on, embroidering the forest’s darkening cloak.
 
Brian Howell
 
Brian Howell is an author and teacher living and working near Tokyo, Japan. He has published three novels and two short story collections since 1990. His novels focus on artists with an interest in optical devices, his short stories exploring more contemporary topics, often touching on magical realism and the weird. The Man Who Loved Kuras was published by Salt, U.K., in 2022. His short story, Pictures of Yukio, was published as a chapbook by Zagava, Germany. Forthcoming in 2024 from Raphus Press is a collection of previously published stories entitled The Study of Sleep and Other Stories on art themes, as well a reprint of his novel about the painter Vermeer, The Dance of Geometry (originally published by Toby Press in 2002) by Zagava.