In Transit
The birds were in transit, flying from the branch of the tree with the peeling bark to the taller tree with needles and cones. After that they darted away to other trees out of our view. There were all kinds of them. Tiny yellow ones. Ones with red breasts. Speckled brown and white ones. And a couple of big, black crows. I had never in my life been so fascinated by birds.
“So?” Felix said. “Where are you going with this? I would really like you to just be honest with me.”
“Okay,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the birds with effort and looking down at Felix’s shoes. He was staring at me, and I was supposed to meet his eyes, but I didn’t want to.
“Well? What is it you want from this relationship? Do you even want to be in this relationship?”
The birds never stopped. They were frantic to get to their next destination. I supposed they were hunting for food. Birds were small like me. We shared a delicate bone structure. I supposed if they missed too many meals they would die. I didn’t want to live like that myself. I wasn’t good at making decisions on the fly. I needed to brood on the situation for a while.
“Marcy!” Felix screamed in my face.
“I don’t know,” I screamed into his.
“Of course, you don’t.”
I knew that line. It was more or less what Felix said whenever he didn’t like the words coming out of my mouth.
“I don’t want to go alone.”
“Of course, you don’t.”
“I think it is sad.”
“Of course, you would.”
“I’m not sure I want to live here anymore.”
“Of course, you do.”
Usually after Felix “of coursed” me, he would explain where I had gone wrong in my thinking, but this time he walked away. I stood there, watching him leave me.
“Hey, where are you going?” I called after him.
“Fuck off.”
This was it then. I felt so light I might have started flapping my arms and felt myself soaring up into the blue sky, never to return.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later, while aboard a plane that was taking me back home to live with my parents, that I realized I had done just that.
