I’ve been watching these humans for days now and I’m worried about them. So much arguing, so much fighting. They’re clearly not coping – don’t even know how.

Honestly, they’re incredibly clever creatures in some ways, not only satisfying my otter’s curiosity but also astounding me. Firstly, they have built a beautiful big square den of glass and teak on the shore of the estuary where I fish each night. I’d rather fancy such a den myself although, admittedly, my pups would find sticks and mud much more cosy.

Every morning, I watch them getting into that giant tin can and grinding off noisily to what I’ve heard them they call “work” and “school”, each lugging a very important-looking bag full, no doubt, of genius toys – like those sharp-edged ones with blue-lit screens that talk back to them in the evenings as they relax on their sofa.

“Am I jealous of the toys? Not really; perhaps that’s an otter thing.”

Am I, Timothy the Otter, jealous of all these things – the huge den, the noisy tin cans, the toys? Not really; I don’t see any point in them. Perhaps that’s an otter thing.

At any rate, they only leave every morning after an argument. I poke my nose through the door every day to see if the littlest human is up for a game, as he was in the past; but even I, boldest of all the otters, feel rather overwhelmed at the noise.

The mother’s voice is soft but impatient, like the sound of dry reeds snapping; the father’s voice has become a sledgehammer, and the child returns anger to them, a hurricane of fury. My pups wouldn’t dare do such things; I would simply cuff them. Humans are far odder than us.

Clever in so many ways, they simply don’t understand other very obvious aspects of life. Listening beneath the window of the smallest human one evening, I heard the mother tell a story about a boat that saved the whole world in a flood, and how the “animals went in two by two”.

I can only presume there were two otters there, to make sure the humans behaved.

Monster on their shoulders

In the past week, the arguments have become predicable – they happen shortly before they eat their evening meal, and sometimes afterwards too, about silly things like “phones” and “homework” and “manners”.

Admittedly, things were even worse in the years when the sea monster Covid (it must surely have been a monster?) was haunting them, in those months of the Great Human Masking. Was the Covid beast so clever that it could sense them breathing, I wondered at the time?

My goodness, what will happen next in this hellhole? I flee to the river.

All these years later, they’re starting to behave strangely again. Perhaps Covid is still here, a little demon rather than a big monster, who keeps jumping onto their shoulders and whispering nonsense into their ears.

This evening, the worst argument of all takes place. It ends, at last, when the boy hurls a plate against the wall and it shatters. Goodness, what will happen next in this hellhole? I flee to the river, my heart pounding. Otters may not have all the gear humans have, but we know when a den is no longer safe.

Of course, I can’t stay away for long. Worry about the boy, my friend who is now out of control, gnaws at me like a starving crab. So just before my fishing expedition the next morning, I poke my head in again.

“Never again”

I expect to find wreckage. Instead, I hear the mother’s voice, soft but firm: “That must never happen again. We must learn to get on in this household.”

The father mutters something I cannot catch. The boy is quiet. Neither are nodding their heads, but their silence seems to signal agreement.

Something has shifted like a tide turning, subtle but sure. At least, I hope so.

I return that evening, of course. They are sitting down to talk. First, they’re just listening to the smallest human. They listen for ages, while I fidget at the threshold, wishing he would finish and come out to play. Interesting: they’re repeating back everything he says, as if checking they understand. Smart, for humans.

“You weren’t really listening to me,” I hear him say. “You haven’t listened to me for ages. It’s as if you’re always thinking of other things, and you’re so worried about them you don’t even see your own son.”

They seem to have understood well, for creatures so deaf that they never hear the wind shifting direction.

At first, he’s raging as he speaks, but eventually his storm is spent, and he calms down. The adults repeat the main aspects of what he’s said. They seem to have understood well, for creatures so deaf that they never hear the wind shifting direction or the whoosh of a fish shoal through water.

Next night, it’s the man’s turn to talk. I don’t wait to take it all in; my own fish supper is calling. Anyway, it’s the boy, my friend, who I’m most interested in, and he looks happier now. Clearly, he feels understood.

Next night, the mother sits down at a giant wooden box, opens the lid and – my goodness – there is a long flat row of white teeth, with rotten black ones in-between.

The music

Is this the slumbering Covid monster? Is she waking it only to be eaten alive?

But no, it doesn’t respond at all – until her hand move across those teeth, nimble fingers tapping. A beautiful sound emerges and fills the house. It is multilayered, melodious as my river at dusk, like song from all the birds I’ve ever known all at once, in perfect harmony.

I, otter Timothy, sit entranced in the doorway close to the woman, and the music wraps around me like a current, pulling me into its depths. I know well the river’s murmur, the whisper of a breeze, the mew of my pups in our den. But this – it is something else, a message from the Great Spirit, clear and unmistakable; surely an echo of the song that created the world.

The woman looks up and sees me. She takes in my wide eyes and winks. She gets it; she knows that I get it too. She continues playing.

I do not mean to fall asleep, but now the music is a lullaby, tender, cradling me. I jerk awake when the little one tiptoes toward me, his finger to his lips. “Sshh,” he whispers, to wake me.

“They mustn’t know you’re here.”

We play, chasing each other along the shore, dashing through the shallows, tumbling in the sand.

I follow him outside, where the night air is cool and the stars blaze like diamonds. We play, chasing each other along the shore, dashing through the shallows, tumbling in the sand. His parents worry I will hurt him. “Otters are wild animals, remember,” I have heard them say countless times. ”They’re so dangerous that should a dog pick a fight with one, it would lose.”

Pah! Of course I wouldn’t hurt this boy. How could they even imagine it?  He’s not a fish I’d want to eat; he’s a friend. I’m gentle with my pups, gentle with my friends too.

Humans simply have no discernment about us wild creatures – not even about their own wildness, at times.

Heaven in my own world

The next day follows a similar pattern. I turn up at about the same time in the evening and listen to the music.

Honestly, I think this is the best thing I’ve learnt about these humans. Again, I was quite transported. I heard the song that brought the stars forth; of the waters pouring out across the earth at the beginning of time. Heaven, this is; the Heaven that I know is always here in my own exquisite world. It seems these humans need something extra to remind them; something to pull them out of the nightmare they create.

The good thing is that they do seem capable of realising it; of finding their way.

From then on, the woman plays music every evening – and sometimes, it is the man, who plays a silver pipe with a melody that soars. These days, they are still keeping at it, on many evenings, if not all. They are keeping in balance. The anger has gone.

And each evening, their child still comes out to play.

“May they remember who they really are.”

And so, this is the story from Timothy the Otter; the tale of how I saw music chase away the demons from the family of humans I am closest to, and how it brought angels closer to them.

Long may they remember. May they remember that these creatures, the creatures that the music brings forth, is who they really are.

I have seen it, and I know it to be true.