Migration

The gull saw the husband explaining why he didn’t know how to change a tire. He had told his wife on their first date seven years ago that he knew how to change a tire. He crowed about it over linguine at Nino’s Bistro. Somehow, in all those years, neither he nor his wife had ever gotten a flat tire. Now, they were on their way to her mother’s house for a holiday dinner, and the passenger’s side tire was a goner. There was a spare, but the husband didn’t know how to put it on, nor did he have the proper tools. He could have used the tools as an excuse, but something propelled him to be honest. He had lied about knowing how to change a spare. His wife wondered what else he had lied about not just on that first date, but since. She played with her wedding ring while he phoned for help.

There are several acceptable places for a gull to land on the Newport Bridge. This particular gull had decided against all of them. She didn’t feel like competing for a spot when another gull flew close. It wasn’t that she couldn’t defend her post, but it was cold, and the cold wore her down. Truthfully, it was unlikely another gull would come by since most had migrated weeks ago. She had been asked to join multiple flocks, but had kindly denied all requests. None of the other gulls knew what was going on with her, but gulls are also incapable of prying, so they let her be. When the last flock left, and she realized that she would need to migrate alone, she considered not doing it at all. What happens to a bird that doesn’t fly south for the winter? Was there somewhere for her to reside for a few months until the weather turned again? Could she become some sort of landmark tern? Beating the odds and enjoying a solitary season filled with red and gold lights?

She told herself she could do what owls do. Live in a barn. Live in a church? Did owls live in churches? She had never met an owl. Down below, a fire truck was going over the bridge. Could fire trucks travel off the island? Could they go to assist mainland fires? One of the firemen was going to spend the holiday sipping brandy alone in a living room with no furniture in it. His wife took the sofa and the children when he refused to tell her the name of the woman he was seeing in town. She didn’t know that the woman’s name was Christopher, and that her husband bought him a new watch once a month. Christopher had over a dozen watches at this point even though he never wore them anywhere. He was a barista at the coffee shop that the fireman liked to frequent. They met one day when the fireman asked what Christopher would recommend for someone who liked something sweet, but still needed to wake up.

“Are you asleep,” Christopher asked him, and the fireman laughed. He liked the way Christopher made him laugh, and the next time he saw him he gave him a watch and an envelope with a piece of paper in it that had the fireman’s phone number on it.

The gull felt a soft pull on her feathers. She didn’t know the ways the cold would affect her. Had her partner come home after flying off to find food by the farthest beach, he would have told her to stop being so stubborn and get to flying already. If she started now, she could still be down by South Carolina in a few weeks. It would be a harder journey, but the alternative could be much worse. The trouble was, she didn’t care. When the morning of his departure turned into afternoon, and then evening, she found a spot on the bridge to sit, and rarely moved. She would have stopped eating if other gulls hadn’t brought food to her. One asked her if she would like a new mate, which might seem like an insensitive proposal, but gulls did not let themselves become bogged down in grief. At least, that wasn’t what they were supposed to do. She hadn’t been with her mate very long, but his absence took her like a downburst. She wasn’t sure she’d ever recover.

Nearly completing the over two mile drive across the bridge was a little red car driven by a man in his early forties who wanted to have a meal by the ocean. He had taken to eating alone ever since the woman he was seeing left him to move to St. Paul. She had family there, and while she had tried to make the best of being on her own on the East Coast, she found it was too difficult to branch that far out from your roots. Dating him had helped, but he spoke a foreign tongue. Not just in language, but in experience. He told jokes she didn’t find funny and took her to see beautiful places that, to her, resembled ruins. His favorite restaurant was a diner where the eggs benedict were a menu favorite. When the waitress put them down in front of her, she thought they looked like silicone implants. It nearly made her sick. The man in the red car received a goodbye email from her shortly thereafter and he had yet to formulate a reply. Inside him was a mixture of disappointment and relief. When you saw someone constantly looking over at the door, you had to wonder how long it would be before they asked the exit to dance.

The gull saw the sun punch out shortly after four o’clock. She noticed the headlights appearing on the cars going over. A tow truck arrived and fixed the flat. The man in the red car parked in front of the diner and went inside to order something other than the eggs benedict. The fire truck returned, and parked itself inside the firehouse. Christopher sat at home drowning in the sound of a dozen watches all perfectly keeping time. The man who lied about being able to change a tire greeted his mother-in-law with a warm hug, while his wife asked what there was to drink. The fireman Facetimed with his children and told them everything would be okay while his soon-to-be ex-wife held the phone in front of her children’s faces and didn’t bother to smile even if it meant giving them comfort. The gull flew down off her post and went looking for a church to spend the night in.

It would be slightly colder tomorrow, but there was a chance she wouldn’t notice. If the cold came slowly enough, it would be possible to bear it. That’s what she told herself as one of her wings seized up a bit, and the downburst met her mid-flight.