She thought her hair was graying. When it came to her, melanin was in short supply. She wasn't surprised, however, by her fading hair. Twenty-four, after all, was middle-aged for the Sheng's long line of tall, long-haired women.

Except she was stuck at five feet and two inches.
Except her hair had always been a puff of baby down.
Except her name was Penny Sheng, not Sheng Yang or Sheng Jing Lian -- or Sheng Yin or Sheng Yi.

Penny held up her fingers like xylophone mallets and delicately rubbed the dark rings under her eyes. She rubbed her shoulders.

Meanwhile, Vivaldi's Concerto No.3 puffed away in the living room, like a winged, ballet-dancing grandfather clock -- hour hand pointed at some dark, jaded number in the ante meridiem. Violins shook her flimsy window as she pulled the curtains aside. Penny loved living on the fourth floor, loved looking into the maple tree's hair as it shed golden sheets to the grass.

Her flip phone rang: Mozart. Penny hit the spacebar on her laptop, halting the concerto. "Good morning, you."

"Hey Penny! What's that noise?"

"What noise?" Penny looked at her phone. "Want to call me back?"

"What? Oh, sure. Whatever."

Penny's phone rang again. "Hey you," said Penny.

"Penny, can't you turn off the music?"

Penny glanced at her laptop. "What music?"

"Stop playing with me, baby. Night shift's almost over, but I'm not in the car yet."

At that moment, a barred owl chose to dive through the golden leaves and slam into Penny's window. The mass of feathers cast big black eyes on her. Penny froze. When time regained its senses and decided to move on, the owl squeaked a few inches down the glass before falling off.

Penny's boyfriend breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you. I know you like Classical, but keep it down when you're on the phone. We don't have the best carrier--"

"Fluke, I have to go."

"Go? Go where?"

Penny pressed her face against the window, trying to see the ground directly below her. Her hands splayed out on the glass, causing it to quake. When the trees turned to rubber and the windowsill folded on itself, she stepped back, clinging to her desk for balance.

She landed on the floor anyway. Coping with anxiety was never her forte, but several deep breaths later, she was up, searching for her one jacket among Fluke's forest of windbreakers. She web-searched and called the local Animal Services office. Go home, she heard herself thinking. Penny glanced at her laptop. "I'm already home."

She could expect the grocery worker to knock any moment now. Getting groceries was the least Penny could do for Fluke; she was developing programs from home all the time. Would she -- should she -- answer the door today?

Shaking in old rubber boots, Penny flipped the deadbolt open. The doorknob felt poisoned in her hand. Penny snatched her gloves from the umbrella stand. "If someone is on duty up there," she said, "don't let me fall."

For someone who has only gazed at it from a peephole for three years, an apartment hallway is a flummoxing place to walk through. Right angles moonwalk on your peripheral vision. Apartment numbers dive in and out of the fake wood surface that cocoons its sleeping residents. Carpet, shmarpet. Cold, steely vibrations rocked Penny through the soles of her feet. She leaned against new wallpaper, thinking of turning around, running, no matter what she ran into, as long as she ended up inside.

Deep in her pocket, Penny's phone rang: Beethoven's Fifth. She flipped the phone open, composing herself.

"Hello?" said the caller.

Penny closed her eyes for a bit.

"Hello, Josephine? Can you hear me?"

Penny sidled a bit toward her open apartment door. A glimmer of sun was calling from her window. "Dr. Klein? I'm sorry, you have the wrong num--"

"Penny! How are you?" The doctor continued before Penny could put in a word. "I can't hear you. Music's loud, but it sounds like you're running out. Sorry for the confusion. Bye!"

The click was ensued by more of Beethoven's Fifth. Penny thumbed the red hang-up key, pummeled it, pushed it till her phone turned off. She gazed longingly at her door, then back at the elevator. While she was talking to Dr. Klein, the "down" button had been inviting her, well within reach.

Hell, the owl was waiting for help.

Penny ran through the elevator doors when they opened, plastering herself to the mirror closest to the alarm button. Which button again? she thought. One? No, L for Lobby. Why, she wondered, give the last floor some fancy label? Maybe she was not alone in fearing the very bottom.

She turned her head a bit too fast, and her reflections grew till the elevator had halved in size. When the elevator doors opened, Penny bolted out, stumbled her way to what she thought might be glass doors, and pushed. She danced with panic through the yard of trees until she found golden leaves under her feet. Embracing her maple tree, Penny searched the ground below her bright, gleaming window.

From its angel-like respite in the leaves, the owl continued to cast its big black eyes at Penny. It hooted like a monkey that had just, holding an apple, conceptualized gravity. "Oooh!"

Penny took from her pocket a sterile, sparkling-new poncho. She had seen a bagged hand pick up everything from fresh-caught fish to dog excrement thus far. An owl could be no different.

The flip phone vibrated in her other pocket.

"Oooh!" said the owl. "Ooo-oooh."

With one hand on the tree, Penny shook out the poncho and laid it just below the owl's neck -- what she thought was the owl's neck.

Flapping its good wing against the plastic, the owl screeched. It struggled like a baby -- feeble, yet terrifying for Penny.

Before Penny could scoop it up in her poncho, the owl grew quiet.

(To be continued...)