Time Away

flash fiction by Jen Knox (c) 2022, originally published in Five South

Photo by Rod Long

I am cold beneath my blanketlike coat as we traverse winding Ohio roads after the first snow. My husband drives fast below a winter sky that reminds me of images I’ve seen of the Arctic Ocean. I tell him to slow down, and he tells me not to backseat-drive as the news thrums, sinking our hearts. I watch the sky turn to pure ice.

A white bird perches on a rooftop ahead. Not a barred owl or blackbird ordinarily seen in these parts. Too large and too lost for this stretch of road in the Midwest, it reaches out, the ocean of sky behind it. Sailors used to believe albatrosses were supernatural, to be revered. Maybe it was the bird’s width, imposing a ten- or eleven-foot wingspan that dwarfed the sun and invited a break from navigation. I blink, nudge my husband.

“I see it,” he says.

“It sees us.” I watch the bead-like eyes, but the bird’s head darts away. As the vast fields crystallize, it swoops closer, wings expanding. It hovers like a charismatic leader who becomes big and shadowy when there is collective grief, spreading arms and promises, while the sun slowly recedes like a hairline, or the ocean, or our ability to take a deep breath without prompt. The car slows as the bird descends.

The news reports yet another opportunity for consolidation of power, yet another slight to human rights. Looking deeper, advocating for something more, is to feel the wings wrapped around our necks. My husband brakes as the bird nears.

Albatrosses, some of the most monogamous creatures, are getting divorced due to planetary warmth, due to longer trips to find their food in waters that might as well be boiling, clear and unblanketed in the Arctic. This bird, out of place and perhaps freshly divorced, envelops our car.

I grab the wheel, tell my husband to hit the gas. As we push forward under the embrace of a majestic bird, the window cracks. The radio goes fuzzy as feathers swirl and the cold rushes in. We listen for something better.

The bird is gone. My husband is driving too fast. We barrel forward, watching the rear view as the fields wander backwards and we wish for something supernatural to return, an opportunity to blur into another dimension, another now. Instead we listen, bear the cold, and get comfortable with being uncomfortable, because like the albatross we need the clarity that comes with a good chill.