The Santa Ana winds flay the arid valley. It is far from the silver-lined luxury of Beverly Hills, far from the salty sea air of San Francisco. The smell of smog permeates, an acrid invader from Los Angeles.
He drives along the lonesome road. It was once a ribbon of black, when the asphalt was still warm and fresh, but now it is gray, worn away by decades of use. Crabgrass, scorched by the sun, covers the land in patches. Snakes slither in the shadows, tails rattling. Coyotes skulk, eyes glowing. The hills are dark craggy shapes in the distance, cutting into an orange-and-purple sky. It is an eerie, otherworldly place, and he is alone.
Alone. Sweet aloneness. Unlike any other state of being.
The silence is all-encompassing, but for the sounds of his car. The muffler grumbles, the engine sputters with the effort. It is an old car, probably too old for the journey to Los Angeles, but he does not care. His foot presses harder on the pedal. An unsettling, playful smile bursts onto his lips. He watches as the speedometer’s thin red needle launches itself forward, thirty, forty, fifty. As though it has a life of its own: a life about to end.
The car sails down the road frantically, like a rabbit chased by a fox. Clouds of dust scatter in its wake. The needle climbs to sixty. Such a strenuous trek up the meter. He forgets all else as the car pulses from its own momentum. Flying.
He rolls down the window. His fingers grip the slim steering wheel. The wind sears through his tousled hair. Squeezing his eyes shut, he floors the pedal. The needle jumps and thrusts, jumps and thrusts.
His smile widens to a grin, courting insanity. His teeth glint in the rearview mirror like bright white mints. His ears ring, his eyes throb, his nostrils flare.
The wind slices through him. He wants to roll up the window, yet he doesn't want to. To be tossed about like a rag doll in his seat, the upholstery hot and bristly against his skin, is exhilarating. The way the wind makes his face flap like gelatin--he likes it. Yet he doesn’t like it. Does he?
The wind bites. The wind howls. The wind is alive.
At last he opens his eyes, and he sees it. A split-second, everything in slow-motion. Its black wings outstretched, head tilted slightly to the side, beak so sharp, talons shining like daggers. Heading right for the windshield. A split-second. His eyes widen, despite the lash of the wind. His foot slams the brake. A split-second.
The steering wheel swerves. The tires squeal. The brake groans. His body lurches forward, the seatbelt cuts into his shoulder and stomach. Too little, too late. The thud. The crumple. The too-slow, too-fast descent to the side of the road.
It’s gone. It’s gone. It’s gone.
He curses under his breath. Sighing deeply, he jerks the steering wheel to the right. The old car putters to the side of the road. The speedometer’s needle slices back to zero, its brief demented life now spent.
He unbuckles the seatbelt, cautiously opens the car door. His feet, wobbly as though unused to a solid surface, touch lightly upon the ground. He closes the door: a broken hollow sound, as though it didn’t shut right. But he doesn’t hear it.
He walks to where it lays, a heap of jutting bones, ragged feathers, congealed blood. The bile rises in his throat. It burns, God, it burns. But he doesn’t taste it.
He falls to his knees. The loose rocks on the ground cut through his jeans. But he doesn’t feel it.
He sees it more clearly: a black hawk, a female--the females are larger. The hawk does not move. Too stunned? Too aware of what has happened? Too aware of what lies ahead.
He reaches out his hands to her. His fingers, dry and calloused, tremble. He caresses her.
The bones poke from her broken wings. Blood blossoms from her breast. But her beak is still intact. She could gnash at him if she wished, she could try to make him feel the pain. She has the energy. But she chooses not to.
A nauseating sight. Wings that were no longer wings. What is a bird without wings? A freak of nature. Like the disfigured child at an orphanage, a child no one wants.
His fault, his fault, his fault.
The hawk’s eyes are wild. He holds her. She was once so powerful in life, now so small near death. He wraps his arms around her wet, shuddering body. He buries her face in the sleeves of his shirt.
He rocks his body in synch with her shallow breath. His mouth is dry as sandpaper. There is no water left inside him, but the tears leak from his eyes anyway. Their salt scalds his skin. He doesn’t understand why he weeps. Remorse? Terror? Perhaps inescapable anguish.
He rocks quicker, steadier. The hawk flaps her wings in one last attempt to flee, to fade away into the dusky sky’s oblivion. Her life hangs by a thread, soon to be severed like the tendons in her battered wings.
Her body no longer convulses, her wings no longer feebly flail. Yet she still breathes. He leans his ear in close to listen. He is near enough that she could tear off the flesh of his ear with one swift swipe of her beak. But she does not.
She pants once, almost inaudibly. Unnerved, he withdraws as though bitten. That empty breath before death, he knows it too well.
He lets her slip from his embrace. He rises to his feet, eyes locked upon her: the black hawk downed by a racing metal monster. Rubbing at his temple, he gnaws at his lower lip--an old habit he should try to kick. With a pang of regret, he turns his back upon the mass of feathers, stained with blood and lost opportunity. Like him.
He freezes, then wheels around. The ground crunches beneath his boots as he marches toward the hawk. He kneels down beside her once more. Her beak, open and gaping wide in sudden death: he breathes into that beak, just once. He does not know why. Gently, like a surgeon, he plucks a feather from her lifeless wing. Even in death the wing recoils--a reflex--then submits to his quick tug. He places the feather in his shirt’s breast pocket.
Approaching the car, he ponders for a moment. Suddenly, a sound pierces him. The black hawk soars above him, its tailfeathers grazing his head. His neck strains to glance behind him: the corpse by the side of the road is gone without a trace. It is her in the sky. His impulse to breathe into the hawk had resuscitated her.
He bellows in triumph. He throws his head back, up, up into the sky. A rogue star glimmers. The hawk cries out again, beckoning him. He knows that cry: the cry of finding prey, the cry of flying high. The cry of freedom.
He takes the feather from his shirt pocket and launches it into the air. All thought of Los Angeles evaporates. He abandons his car. The city, the car, the imitation of life he left behind--it is all so insignificant.
Dusk departs and twilight descends. The Santa Anas flare at the nape of his neck. A coyote howls plaintively. He follows the hawk’s path. Her call resounds in his ears, her heartbeat pounds in his head. The beating of her wings surges through his veins.
Alive! Alive with a purpose.
…Now, he is nothing but a silhouette stamped against the dark mural of the sky, rapidly growing smaller. And he would not have wanted it any other way.
(edited and revised for the helpful suggestions)
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