Fifteen
A big white flutter.
You know you saw it, but where…. There in the tree! Look! Look now! Trust your eyes! “Christ he’s beautiful. My god what a wing span…, so graceful…, so effortless. Flight. Just flight. And then he’s gone.�?
And now what’s that? No, no. What’s that in you?
“A flux of some sort, a draining kind of, from here to there. So?�?
So, drive!
“How?�?
You know how. And so you do know how… That’s it. Long, exuberant strides of automotive…
“What? Exuberance? Liberation?�?
Yes and yes. And what is your name today?
“Dr. Antoinette Marelli.�?
Nope. Try again.
So you steered the nose of the Saab convertible to the right edge of the road for a sweeping, downhill left-hander. The apex of the curve was clipped with precision, and fourth gear fell easily to hand. Right foot’s mounting pressure on the pedal, and the invitation of straight-away demented you slightly; enough so that the living, barked-over balusters leaned back, and braced their green boughs together as you passed, a blur. Frenzy rained out of the sky in gold streaks. Faster and faster. You were feeling the limit of adhesion getting closer, imagining the slipping out of control, the manic, futile attempt to correct the line, and your last sight: the impassable, solid, deeply-rooted, massive tree. A long, clear moment later, impact and explosion, a fountain of flame, a scattering of you at the atomic level, as the Snowy Egret heaves majestically away. But not today! 118 miles per hour, and still alive! Now, yes now, you are Toni (hello), free and forever twenty, hair a chestnut flame in the wind, smile a beacon racing ahead of the car, bright as a captured dapple of sunlight, and perceptive as X-ray. But foremost, you just are, and the warmth of the sun is a gratitude.