| Birds. Everyone envies them for their flight, the freedom of an aerial infinity, but flying has been done. What about something new? Bailey watched a flock of geese flying south from the window, past his computer screen, past the game he probably should have been paying attention to. His friend Paris peered over his shoulder. "Bailey. Hey. Dude, you died." "No I didn't, I'm just zoning out." "In the game. The Horde destroyed you." Bailey avoided looking away from the birds for another minute, brushing a hand through thick hair. "Did you know it's easier to get an erection in space?" "Well, I guess space is my only hope then." "Probably. Did you know that your muscles deteriorate faster in space too?" "So I'd basically be a floating, gimpy boner?" "Basically." "I hate space." Paris was staring down at his shoes absently. His laces were different colors and the shoes themselves were painted all over with sharpie and crayon and smeared oil pastels and whatever else. He wasn't sure how they got that way. Outside, the autumn winds blew absinthial and filtered between buildings and cars and bounced down alleyways where stagnant urine bloomed finespun in the salty bouquet of the sea. "I don't see what the big deal about space is," Paris breathed hot through pursed lips, chapped and scarved. "I guess it's important because it's mysterious." "I'm mysterious. Why'm I not important?" "Well, first of all, you're not, and also you're human. Science kind of has that covered." "Yeah, well what about AIDS or other shit like that? Last I heard, cancer research had mentioned something about needing to bum a couple donations once or twice." "Everyone has different priorities." "Until they get cancer." I don't see what's so great about space either. They stop briefly at an abandoned section of the docks, crumbling wooden planks suffering feculent tragedies from the wheeling seagulls overhead screeching territorial hunger, a symphony of greed and selfish aeolian pride. Paris sidesteps an incoming assault; passive, careening anal warfare. "Well shit fire." "What are you? An elderly gold rush prospector?" "Only when your mom wants to play out her fantasies." Fucking birds, man. A cement wall overlooks the water, beryl stains climbing desperate towards the decumbent sky, the gelid waves lapping at their shoes like dogs' tongues and noses, leaving behind a crusted white residue. Their numb fingers dance in their pockets, a woolen wish for heat but a retained love for the Siberian tingle in their cheeks and toes and exposed lower backs. "What about the ocean," Bailey polled, scrubbing his nose across his sleeve, a snail's trail, a sick luster. "What about it?" "Fish. Swimming. It's kind of like floating in space, but you can control your direction. And it's like flying but you never have to land. It's almost the best of both, if not for the lack of oxygen." "And the frigid temperatures." "And the sharks." A saline breeze moaned through the dilapidated remains of a rusted out yacht, long abandoned, a cynosure of the ocean's hands. "I don't see what the big deal about flying or floating is." Bailey turned to look at Paris, a sudden expectancy in his expression, anxious for explanation. "It's all so unnerving and uncontrollable. Birds fly into windows and jet engines all the time. The ocean has strong undercurrents and bottomless trenches occupied by hungry things that can swim faster than you. And everything in space is controlled exclusively by momentum; one slip and you're just fucking... gone." "So you think staying on the surface maybe isn't so bad." "It's what we're made for. Why would our bodies want anything else?" On the horizon, a passing boat's horn let out a whisper of a bellow, carried on thalassic wings, transparent, halcyonian. Bailey stared thoughtfully into the middle distance. Somewhere, a man and his wife pause at their door, key in the lock, to watch a flock of geese flying south. |
Author notes
Was all up in the air.
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