Flash Fiction #1

The feather drifted down from the pine boughs and settled in her hair. Kate barely felt the touch of lightness but knew something was different. She lifted her hand to the top of her head and pulled the snowy white and brown spotted owl feather from the strands of her hair. Evan didn’t notice. He rarely noticed anything about her movements these days. These days? These months? Or had it been years?

She palmed the feather and reached out for his hand. He recoiled at the whisper soft stroke of the feather.

“What are you doing?” he stepped away from her, brought his hand up to his chest, a tight fist against his heart.

“It, this, landed on my head. Isn’t that funny?”

“Funny?” he said.

“A synchronicity,” she said.

He narrowed his eyes, his mouth tight and sneering. Shit. He didn’t remember. She should have known he wouldn’t remember.

“Like the first time we met. Remember the owl feather you gave me?”

His eyes crumpled into the dark corners of his memory. She could see him searching, hands sieving time, coming up empty.

“No, I don’t remember.”

“In the forest. When you passed me on the trail. You offered me a feather?”

“I did?”

“You did. I kept it on the dashboard in my car but it disintegrated. Mites or something.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re late.”

“Yeah,” Kate said. She dropped the feather and kept walking, a few steps behind Evan.

“Maybe,” she said, stopping to turn around and pick up the feather.

“Come on, we’re late. He’s waiting,” Evan didn’t turn around to say.

“Maybe I’m not going,” she said. Evan stopped, turned around. “I’m not going. Just do it without me,” she said and shoved the feather into the knot of long brown hair on the top of her head. The crown chakra, she’d learned in yoga. She could feel the quill scratching against her skin, parting her strands to find their home.

“Fine,” he said.

“OK.” 

Kate wiped away a tear and smiled. She walked until her feet blistered and bled. She wasn’t going home. There was not home. Flown the coop, she thought, and kept walking.