Incredible Seabirds of The Kerguelen Islands

There were warning signs that morning.

A shift in the winds. Charcoal clouds gathering. A crackling in the air like the day itself had been plugged into an electrical socket. 

Ellie had felt the stirrings of it for weeks. Months. Years, even. And had she just looked out the window, she might’ve seen it coming. A restless inevitability bobbing to the surface of a placid summer like a knife had been taken to the tethers of something long tied down.

But that morning, with her nose in her book, Ellie missed the warning signs completely.

It was nearing noon when the door’s bell jingled. Ellie didn’t bother to look up from her book. It was either Gary stopping in for coffee or Marge in for her daily lotto ticket. It was never anyone else.

Greg’s Gasoline was on the side of a desolate stretch of road halfway between Straight and Narrow, pinprick towns full of double-wides and decaying dreams.

A wrinkled bill was slapped down on the counter. “Twenty on three, please.” 

Ellie looked up. 

The woman was trying on a pair of aviator sunglasses, running a hand through dark, wind-tossed curls as she checked her reflection in the tiny mirror attached to the stand. 

Ellie knew she was staring. She couldn’t quite stop. 

The woman set the sunglasses down on the counter too. “Take these as well,” she said, fishing more cash from her leather jacket. She had an accent. A foreign accent.

Ellie just sat there like a single-celled organism staring straight into the sun. Frying her retinas. 

It tipped over into awkward and the woman tilted her head. “Sorry—you work here, yeah?”

“Me? Oh—no, it’s my—” Ellie laughed, immediately cringing at the shrill sound, “my husband owns the—I’m a teacher. I’m just here for the summer.”

The woman nodded, the tiniest curve at the edge of her mouth. She waited. Glanced at the twenty on the counter. “So—can I get some petrol?”

“Oh!” Ellie jumped off her stool, “yeah, sorry, of course—” She jabbed at the buttons on the register. 

“Incredible Seabirds of the…” the woman turned Ellie’s book on the counter, “Kerguelen Islands?” 

“Yeah,” Ellie nodded, fumbling to put the bills in the drawer, “it’s about these birds that, um, live on these…islands.” She swallowed the urge to die on the spot. 

But the woman just stuck out her lower lip and nodded. “Bird enthusiast, are you?”

“Not really,” Ellie said, raising a shoulder. “It’s just—they’re on the opposite side of the world.” 

The woman’s brow quirked.

“The Kerguelen Islands are. If you drilled a hole straight through this floor and went all the way through the globe you’d come out in the Kerguelen Islands.” Ellie shrugged. “It’s as far away from Oklahoma as you can get.”

There was something else in the woman’s gaze then. Something in the tilt of her smile, the unexpected warmth in her eyes. Recognition, maybe.

The moment stretched and Ellie glanced away. “Oh,” she gestured out the window, “you’re all set on three.”

The woman looked at Ellie for a moment longer before seeming to snap out of it with a nod. 

“Right.” She pocketed her change, slipped the sunglasses on. “Cheers.” 

Ellie smiled. “Cheers.” 

Watching the woman walk away felt quite a lot like being handed a balloon, bright and colorful, only for the string to slip through Ellie’s fist. Nothing to do but watch it disappear into the sky. 

But the woman turned back at the door, spinning her keyring on a finger. “What makes—"

And then it happened. 

The siren’s blare, bellowing. An archangel’s trumpet.  

Ellie’s eyes snapped to the window. “Shit,” she breathed. “Shit." The sky was already green at the edges. 

The woman was looking between Ellie and the window. “What’s—?”

“In back, there’s a—it’s cinderblock so it’s safer in the storage—” Ellie was already around the counter, grabbing the woman by the wrist.

“Hang the fuck on, what’s happenin’?”

Ellie looked at her. The woman really didn’t know. “A tornado.”

“Now?” The woman glanced outside. “It’s not even proper blustery—"

“It will be. The siren’s meant to give time to prepare, but—”

“Should we drive somewhere else? Storage room doesn’t sound—”

Ellie was already shaking her head. “There is nowhere else. It’d take half an hour to reach the nearest town and cinderblock is safer than someone’s aluminum trailer.”

“Fuck.” She glanced outside again. “My bike—” 

Ellie considered the black motorcycle waiting at pump three. “Bring it in.”

“The store?”

“Yeah, just—be quick.”

The siren’s blare flared when the woman opened the front door, bits of trash from the overturned bin blowing in with her when she returned a moment later, bike in tow. 

“This is mad, you know." 

“What, no tornadoes in Britain?” Ellie sent her a quick smile as she locked the register and chained the front door. “Don’t worry, it’s not a supercell,” she said, more for herself than anything. “We’d get text alerts if it was.”

“What the fuck’s a supercell?”

“Bad. You’ve heard of megalodons? Like, in the ocean?”

“Mythological shark creatures?”

Ellie glanced at her. “Right. You have your sharks and your megalodons. You have your tornadoes and your supercells.”

“Shit.”

“But this isn’t that. A storm like this will tear down trees but not much else.” Ellie hoped, at least. She led the woman into the back. “Also—they’re not mythological. Megalodons were a thing.”

“Don’t believe it.”

“They’ve found fossils.”

“Doesn’t prove anythin’.”

Ellie looked at her. “Are you one of those dinosaur deniers?”

“What?”

“I did a unit on dinosaurs with my class and a bunch of parents protested on religious grounds.”

The woman laughed. “No, definitely not. Just don’t swallow everythin’ shoved in my mouth, ‘s all.”

The storage room was dark and cramped with metal shelves bolted to the wall. Ellie tugged the short chain by the lightbulb—the only source of light in the small room, and a dull source at that. She moved some boxes and they settled into a corner, backs to the rough wall. 

“Gonna pull them off if you’re not careful.” The woman nudged her chin at Ellie’s hands.

Ellie stopped tugging on her thumbs and shoved her hands between her knees. “Bad habit.” 

She glanced at the tiny rectangular window—the only window in the room. The sky had gone black and there was rain now, small droplets spitting against the dusty glass. Her phone lit up by her leg. Greg. She reached for the phone. Almost answered. Then, inexplicably and for the first time in her life, she ignored him. Turned the phone face down on the concrete floor. 

The woman noticed. Glanced at the phone, glanced at Ellie. But she didn’t ask. 

“It should—” pass quickly, Ellie almost said, but just then there was a resounding crack of thunder like God himself had ripped the sound barrier in two. 

Lightning had begun to strobe, interrupted every now and then by thunder like sonic booms. 

“This happen often?” The woman asked. “Tornadoes?” 

Ellie nodded. “I should be used to it. I grew up here.”

“Don’t think natural disasters are somethin’ you’re meant to get used to.” 

“Everyone I know is used to it. But I—I just hate the sound of the wind.”

It was howling now, battering the window. 

“It might blow in,” Ellie watched the pane rattling. There was a protocol—Greg kept plywood somewhere. “I should cover—” She stood, just as the lightbulb overhead went out. The store’s electric hum went silent. Nothing but the raging wind. “Shit.”

“Far enough from the window," the woman said softly. "If it blows I reckon we’ll be fine.”

Ellie sunk back down, eyes closed. She opened them when the woman cleared her throat expectantly, her hand outstretched and waiting for Ellie to take it. 

Her grip was warm. Strong.

“Alex Tanner, thirty-one, London, allergic to shellfish, great with dogs, terrible with children.” She scrunched an eye. “Figure we might as well skip the bullshit and get friendly if we’re ‘bout to go through it together, yeah?”

Ellie swallowed. Nodded. “Okay. Ellie Peterson, twenty-nine, Oklahoma, allergic to dogs, great with children.”

There was a flash of a smile in the dark and the woman chuckled.

“Will never work between us, ‘m afraid.”

“I’m not that allergic.” Ellie’s heart stopped. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. 

Alex’s smirk was back. “Good to know.” 

The roof groaned with the force of a particularly strong gust and something large slammed against the wall outside with a loud bang.

Ellie jumped.

“’S okay,” Alex said. “Probably just a rubbish bin, yeah? The wind—”

She gestured vaguely. 

Ellie was pulling on her thumbs again. “So—why Oklahoma?” 

“Girlfriend broke up with me in a text message,” she said, seeming to miss the way Ellie’s eyes leapt up at the word girlfriend, “so I fucked off to do bucket list shite. Road-trip cross America.” 

“During tornado season."

“Reckon I should’ve done a bit more research.”

“What’d it say? The text?”

“Said I’m aching for it and I’m gonna bloody devour you at the hotel.” Alex met Ellie’s questioning gaze. “She was on a business trip. Text wasn’t meant for me.”

“Jesus.”

“Yup.” 

The wind slammed something else against the wall with a metallic clang. Ellie winced, but this time she didn’t jump.

“What do you teach?” Alex asked. 

“Third grade.”

“’S that—‘s that a good age? To teach?”

“I wanted to teach marine biology.”

“To kids?”

“No, just—” Ellie waved a hand. “At a college or something. But there aren’t any colleges around here, so.”

Alex eyed her. “And you couldn’t bear the thought of leavin’ the twisters and trailers in the rearview?”

Ellie huffed out a laugh. Shrugged. “My mom’s here and she’s—she’s not well, she’s—” She shook her head. 

There was a furrow in Alex’s brow. “Sorry to hear.”

“No, it’s—I mean, thank you, but it’s—Greg’s business is here, it wouldn’t work for me to—” She gave another little shrug. How could she possibly explain it to someone so free she was road tripping across a foreign country? 

But from the corner of her eye she saw Alex nodding. “My parents were—well, not really parents, to put it plain. Had to raise my little brother on my own.” She looked at Ellie. “I get it, ‘s all I’m sayin’. That shite’s a bit like a gravity pit. Keeps you bound in place.”

The words fizzed in Ellie’s chest like warm champagne and a million different things were brimming in her mouth, tugging on her tongue. Instead she asked, 

“You really don’t believe in fossils?”

“Just think we pretend to know more ‘bout shite than we do.” Alex shrugged. “You ever been to Pompeii?”

Ellie stifled a wry smile. “I’ve never been anywhere.”

“Not missin’ much in Pompeii, honestly. You walk round gawkin’ at all these poor people turned to ash and the tour guide tells stories ‘bout them. Husband and wife, he says. Newlyweds. Comfortin’ each other.” Alex shrugged. “Don’t know why we do that. Why we make shite up when the truth is a lot more beautiful.” 

Ellie waited for her to say more but she was silent, so Ellie prodded. 

“

What’s the truth?”

“Their last moments were pure fear. Chaos. They turned to whoever they were standin’ near for comfort. Strangers to soul mates in one split fuckin’ second.”

Just then there was a loud grating from above. The wind, tearing at the roof. 

“What will they say about us?” Ellie asked. “If they find us in the wreckage after the storm?" 

“Won’t happen,” Alex reached over and squeezed her arm. “Not that kind of storm, said so yourself.”

“Are you always this calm or are you faking for my sake?”

Alex smirked. “Both.”

Ellie smiled at the floor. “What else is on your bucket list?”

“Open a flower shop. Maybe get married. Normal shite.”

“Marriage is overrated.”

Alex’s brow ticked up. 

She’d said too much and Alex was going to ask a question she couldn’t answer, so Ellie steered them back to safety. “What were you going to ask me before?”

Alex’s head tilted. 

“Right before the siren. You started to ask me something.”

Alex thought about it. “Oh—your book. Was gonna ask what makes the seabirds so incredible.”

Suddenly there was a whine in the distance, louder than the wind. Ellie looked at the window, it was rattling ferociously. “Do you hear—”

“Bet when they sing it’s sea shanties, innit? That what it is? An entire island of birds singin’—"

“It’s—it’s their glands. That’s what—why they’re incredible.” Ellie was trying to breathe evenly. The building had survived tornadoes before. But there was that distant whine…

Alex’s phone lit up and she grabbed it, glanced and then slid it face down under her leg. But Ellie had seen it. Seen the alert pop up. Supercell.

Ellie’s stomach flipped. “Alex—”

“Keep tellin’ me ‘bout the bird glands, don’t worry ‘bout that.”

“But—”

“In this together, yeah?”

Ellie nodded. Closed her eyes. Focused. “They drink seawater. The birds do. Their island is remote, there’s no—so they’ve adapted—they have this gland, this—it desalinates the water after they drink it.”

Alex whistled softly. “Impressive.”

“I think it’s sad." 

Alex looked at her then. 

Ellie shrugged. “They had to change to survive. I think it’s sad.”

Alex was still looking and Ellie met her gaze in the near-darkness. She only turned away when the whine grew louder. Closer. 

Ellie swallowed. “That’s—that’s it—that’s the tornado—”

“Hey, look at me. Ellie, look—” Alex’s hand was at her chin, a gentle force pulling her eyes away from the buffeting window. 

Ellie met her gaze, her chin still burning from her touch. Another crack of thunder resounded and, as if propelled by the boom, Ellie lurched forward and pressed her lips to Alex’s in a moment so impulsive she was pulling away before she realized what she’d done.  

Alex’s brow wrinkled as she watched her pull back.

“Sorry,” Ellie whispered into the darkness. “I shouldn’t have—"

“’S fine, no harm done,” Alex’s voice was soft. “Worse ways to spend my last minutes, honestly.” Then, “Sorry. Bad joke.”

Ellie barely heard her over the ringing in her ears. There were butterflies in her stomach despite the knots. 

“Tell me somethin’ else,” Alex said after a moment spent listening to the wind’s angry howl. “Bucket list, or somethin’ you’ve never told anyone before—”

“Leaving my husband,” Ellie said quickly, fighting a wave of panic as hail began battering the roof, high-pitched pings like ricocheted buckshot that grew louder until soon it sounded like golf-balls pelting. 

It took a moment for Alex to respond. “Is—is that a bucket list thing or somethin’ you’ve never—”

“Both.”

Ellie was watching the window again and she could feel Alex’s eyes on her face, but the whine was steadily becoming a roar and why wasn’t Alex frightened?

“We could die,” Ellie said, because it seemed like Alex didn’t understand. “It isn’t a little funnel cloud like in the movies, a supercell tornado is massive, miles wide, destroying everything in its—”

“Why are you leavin’ him?”

Ellie did a doubletake. “I—it’s—it’s a long story. Parts of which are probably obvious after…” She gestured between them weakly. 

“Mmm.” Alex was playing with her thumb ring but she looked up, shocking Ellie with a bright smile. “We should dance.”

“What?”

“There’s this song—somethin’ about dancin’ in the eye of a hurricane. Just figured—” Alex waved a hand at the window, soaked in rain, cracked by hail and ready to blow in any moment. “And then tonight? After this shite clears? I’ll take you to dinner. You can tell me your long story." 

“Alex—” 

The tornado was a freight train, roaring and imminent and they were just grains of sand in its path. 

“Say yes,” Alex was smiling, eyes narrowed, urging her. “You can choose the place, m’not picky—”

Ellie leaned in, cutting her off with a kiss that lasted and lasted.

“Okay,” Ellie finally nodded against Alex’s forehead, “let’s dance.”

Alex grinned. She stood, offered a hand, and pulled Ellie in close. They swayed in place as Alex rested her cheek against Ellie’s and began humming a soft tune in her ear.

Ellie giggled. A soft, nervous sound that Alex answered with a chuckle.

“’M a bit tone deaf, sorry.”

Ellie kissed her again, fingers raking into her curls, holding to them like a tether. Alex’s hands were at her hips, her back, the side of her face, everywhere, pulling her into kisses turning filthy with tongues.

“Fuck,” Ellie heard herself whisper, “I want—” There were tears running down her cheeks and Alex brushed them away.

“What do you want?”

“I don’t want to die.”

Alex shook her head. “I don’t want to die either."

“What do we do?” Ellie’s voice broke. 

Alex’s hand moved to cradle her jaw, her other hand seeking Ellie’s, linking their fingers. She looked at her for a long moment. Finally, she gave a small shrug like the answer was obvious. 

“Try to live,” she said.

And then they were kissing again, fused together, sparking and electric. Dancing with the surge of the storm as it blew in the window at long last, wind and rain whipping around them.

The roof tore away, peeled back by the storm’s greedy fingers, papers and boxes and bags from the metal shelves sent swirling, sucked up into the hungry black vortex above. The squall snarled in their ears and clawed at their skin but they felt none of it, even as the cinderblocks trembled and began to give way.

The world churned and crumbled and still they clung to each other, inevitable. Invincible. Anchored within the eye of the storm.