The Flight by DA Kentner

The Flight
by DA Kentner

“Morning. Finally.”

I twist my head around trying to unkink the muscles so stiff from sleeping with my head turned backwards resting on my shoulder. I don’t know why I sleep that way. Everybody does it. Maybe I just want to fit in, maybe I do secretly want to be like everybody else, maybe it’s some hidden instinct, maybe I’m just stupid.

Standing now, I move my head up and down, round and round, making no sound. Except for the nauseating bone creaking that is. Shouldn’t have stayed out so late, but I hate waking up on an empty stomach. Better to be out after dark, hunting around the light that attracts the evening moths, than wake up with that growling hollow pit.

Stretching, I feel my arms quiver and convulse. Winter’s coming. Shaking my entire body I try to throw off the chill of the night air. It doesn’t work. I really need a woman… a body to wake up next to.

Hanging out with the guys isn’t like it used to be. They all have wives now. I’m the only bachelor left. They’ve all built lovely little stick homes, all in the same neighborhood, all exactly alike, and snuggle all night together, and wake up side-by-side yakking their fool heads off. Their irritatingly happy voices wakeup everybody else and the new day begins. It all gives me a headache.

Wait a minute. I know that voice drifting through the morning breeze. I saw her in the meadow yesterday chasing butterflies. She’s quick. She had four or five before any of the others could react. How could I not notice that lithe little body twisting and undulating in the afternoon sun? And the way she stood defiantly telling the others of her superiority… that’s one sexy woman!

Okay, okay. Maybe it is time I find a wife. I certainly could do worse than her. But that new guy was checking her out too. If I’m really going to get serious about this, I better make a move soon.

Lowering my head, I listen. I turn my ear into the breeze, focusing on the direction the sound is coming from. It’s coming from the woods across from the fast-movers’ path. Better make the decision now while I know where she is. Okay, I’ll do it. Have to do something to get her attention though. Nobody can dive and climb like I can--that ought to get her interested.

All right, then, let’s do this.

I push off with my legs, my body plummets towards the earth, but my stretching pays dividends and I sail across the ground, just inches above the glistening, wet grass. Have to move fast. I beat my wings hard, pressing them into action. Gaining altitude I see the pathway through the mist. There will be heat there reflecting off the smooth surface. I have used this knowledge before. At a height of fifty feet I begin my descent. Folding in my wings, I am gaining speed. The wind presses against my face. I narrow my eyes to counter the pang of the air rushing into my pupils. Her enticing warble is growing louder. She sees me and is urging me on. She has noticed me before. This is my chance. I am center stage. Tonight I will sleep next to her.

The ground scurries up to meet me, but at the last, the most dangerous moment, I spread my feathered arms and welcome the rising heat. I contort my body and shoot upwards in a straight line towards the heavens. Today I will soar even higher than I have before. She will know I am the quickest and most daring—-a truly worthy suitor. My acceleration increases and I am traveling so fast I see hallucinogenic blinding light.

“Fucking suicidal bird,” grunts the man grateful his daughter is still asleep. If she had seen him hit the stupid bird, he would never have heard the end of it all the way to Disney World.

“Daddy! You killed that bird! You’re a murderer!” the voice wails uncontrollably from the backseat.

“Shit…”

Author bio:

David Kentner is an "old new" author. He recently began writing again after a thirty-eight year hiatus following his retirement as his city's Police Chief. He has one completed fiction novel (unpublished) and is currently working on several others, both fiction and non-fiction. Faraway Journal accepted his short story, The Book Review, for their Winter 2008/09 issue.