Now

 

A BIRD TRAPPED IN THE AIRPORT—something small and desperate and otherwise common, except for the distinction of being a frantic and wild thing amongst so many Jamba Juices. He could hear the breathy flap of wing overhead as the thing swooped towards a wall of glass through which the sun rose into excruciating color. Sickening, the light of this dreaded day.

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Sickening, the sound of beak cracking against glass.

 

No one else had noticed. If they had, they walked onward with only the briefest grimace—busy, late, aware that nothing could be done. Dennis was aware of this, too, but his mother was a woman who thought birds were omens—ignoring a suffering one could land you a curse. 

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But they were calling his zone. 

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Dennis liked this about airports, the disembodied voice telling him what to do was the closest he got anymore to believing in a higher power. As he crammed into 23B, Dennis added the bird to a running list in his head—a tally of the day’s miseries. He wanted to believe that an army of little shitty things became more than the sum of their parts and hoped that by consolidating and ordering his dull unhappiness, he might redeem it—a collector of mundane suffering, he considered himself, the Patron Saint of Stubbed Toes. So far, he had:

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~ airport bird

~ airport mothers yelling at airport children

~ the possibility of seeing the people who used to love probably hate you

~ jaw ache so bad you fantasize about sawing off the bottom half of your face

~ at least everyone would feel sorry for you coming back with half a face like that

~ the fact you had this thought ^ before listing…

~ your mother is in open-heart surgery

~ she’s expecting you

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