Philip and Angela are at an airport watching the fog on the tarmac through a reinforced panoramic sheet of glass, holding hands. I don't want to be here, watching them, describing the truth behind the blathering overtness of the manner in which they attempt to keep each other from floating away. But I've felt what they're feeling and I implore you to believe that the truth of it is so much more delicate coming from others, those with as strong a possibility of taking flight as these two have.
When I was eight years old I accidentally stepped on a grounded thrush. Just a split second of inattention as I turned to a friend in wonder at the bird's inability to fly. Its bones cracked under the weight of my little boy body. Its panicked black eyes shot up at the sky it would never again reach, hurling its last cries from the back of a collapsed esophagus. There are very acute moments of pain in being alive.
There is silence, of course, because a lack of sound is common at the end. Ten minutes before the boarding call they shift their grips to hold each other's wrists. They count their pulses in an irregular game of leapfrog, their nervousness collecting as each suffers under the effort to still the rush of blood to the wound. I am buried in Philip's coat inhaling the odour of his body when I spot an eyelash on Angela's cheek. It vanishes when the back of her free hand brushes it away with the wetness of her tears.
Philip is turning red and I can tell he is rumbling with heartache and wants these last moments to define the way he will feel about anyone he will ever meet. Angela dries her eyes on a facecloth she has removed from her carry-on suitcase. She releases Philip's wrist and his life drops. Birds have it lucky. My aunt once had a budgie that became enamoured with a finger puppet she had placed in its cage to witness the bird's reaction. At first it was fearful of the stiff cylindrical frame and painted face of the puppet and kept its distance. After a month or so, if my aunt tried to remove the puppet, the budgie would fly erratically and scream until it was returned. She buried the puppet in a cigar box with the bird when it passed away. These attachments last. I still have a stuffed bear I adore though it doesn't feel my pulse.
They stand, their legs straightening with lightning quickness, Angela first, Philip after a long, resolved sigh. And they embrace. Angela's fingers curl and she leaves her body to burrow in the spaces between the strands of Philip's sweater. Everything quiets but the fizzling announcement of the loudspeaker sprawling through the terminal.
The earth starts to shake, and this is my doing. The window glass cracks without shattering, the kitschy wares of the gift shop tumble to the tiled floor. The tarmac splits and smokes, water geysers from discharged drainage pipes and plumbing, the building tips dramatically to one side and Philip and Angela fall without letting go. When they are able to stand, their legs are rubber because the ground is gone. They tread a light path to the window and watch the receding foundation of the airport below, clinging to the earth and shrinking, the planes on the runway turning tail in confusion.
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