I had a really weird dream that me and some chick, I think she was a cousin or some sort of relative, had these owls.

They were special "soft owls", and they came packaged in medium sized plastic bottles, about the size of a gatorade container. You opened the sealed lid, and there was a small container of B12 pills, that you are supposed to periodically add to the water in the container to keep it at the right nutrient levels for the soft owls to survive. Under the small container, which functioned as a second lid of sorts, there is the soft owl.

They were quasi-amphibian owls, with very porous skin and very thick, waterproof feathers. The skin pores were very big and also functioned as gills so the owl could breathe while in the container. The pores are so big, they leak a little bit of blood, especially if the owl is squeezed. Again, really stiff, grey and red feathers, and the body of the owl itself is soft and squishy, almost like a water balloon.

So I took my owl to the town hall meeting, where there were a bunch of people with falcons, they were releasing them, and the falcons would fly around, then come back down and alight on the ground. I just stood there watching for awhile,
petting my soft owl and whispering nice things in his ear and cuddling him, because he was cold.

After awhile, I decide to give soft owl (I forgot the name I gave him) a shot at flying, and launched him up in the air. He fluttered up for about 10 feet, but then started crashing down to earth.

We all rushed over to where he had landed, only to find that the impact had forced all his blood out of his gill pores, and he was dead.

I was crushed, and felt like it was partially my fault, and started crying. Everyone in the town was really sad too, and they started crying. It started to rain, so everyone went and got sandbags and made a wall around soft owl's
little body, to keep the water from washing him away.

The next day or something, I bought another bottle of soft owl, and took my new pet out and started grooming him and playing with him. My cousin also bought another one for herself. Then my stupid brothers or other cousins or something,
all 5 of them big lanky trackstar types, want to watch some family slideshows. So my other cousin (the girl) and I decide this is a good time to leave.

We put the soft owls back in the storage bottles, which we put into the pockets of our oversized wool coats. Then I grab my checkbook, because soft owls eat checks. We sat in the town square, feeding the owls checks, periodically wiping away the small drops of blood that would pool around their pores.

I remember being really sad, these owls would just bleed.

The alarm woke me up, the radio blaring some oldies song. Without even thinking about it, I found myself muttering the words "all life is pain."