FUNDAMENTALS– death in my hand

            Perhaps we remember those events that change everything we thought we knew. Ignorance and truth collide, shifting our reality into a foreign land. Images stare back at me from faded pages—a toddler clutching her father’s leg in one hand, an Easter egg in the other; waiting for the school bus, her knee socks falling short on impossibly long legs; posing by the fire with her brother in matching Christmas pajamas. I run my fingers over her face. Imposter. It’s holding Death in my palm that’s my entry into consciousness.

            Flying! I crouch over the handlebars, purple streamers flapping from rubber grips stained with dirt from digging worms and berries I pick along the river. Wind sucks the moisture from my eyes and flattens them. I am a pilot in the cockpit of a warplane. “Bombardier! Bombardier! 1 – 2 – 3. Do you read?” A blur of cornfields whip by, and I gulp air sweet with hay and Queen Anne’s lace. A flash of yellow catches my eye and I whip my head around. My tire skids on the gravel shoulder, and I barrel down the embankment toward a barbed-wire fence, my teeth clanking. “Eject! Eject!” The tall grass cushions my shoulder. I roll onto my back and catch my breath. Cottony cloud barges cut through a sea of blue. I limp up the bank.

            I squat over a small bird on its side, one black eye watching me. Ripples cut through its yellow breast feathers like wind stirring a wheat field. It’s the most beautiful bird I’ve seen up close. I poke it with a stick. It fits in my palm, still soft and supple. I slip it into my pocket and walk my bike home. The sun sets, a brilliant orange ball on the horizon. Two truths press on me. Death is more powerful than beauty. And hidden inside a perfect shell can be mortal damage. Bombs away.