Up and Away
We have the video still, and it tells the story better than words ever could:
Two pairs of sockless feet waving out a car window, toes wiggling in the sunshine, as the mountains of the Karoo rush by, as life rushes by.
I know how the backseat of that car tastes, of damp seat-sponge and shoe-dust and fresh-baked bread. The tomatoes rolling on the back shelf, a feathery head on my shoulder as we roll too, like kittens, soft-limbed and lazy and tangled. The bags at our feet, under our elbows, on our laps - like the barely-there mornings when we used to pile everything into our car for the long drive to France, cushioned in on all sides by belongings, pressing our faces to the window to say goodbye to the cat (who always knew and sat ramrod stiff with her back to us, refusing to forgive).
I know what came before, hours and hours before, before there was a road to wave toes at. The yawning dawn reunion at the top of High Street, eyes gummed half shut, trailing hastily packed suitcases. We put our faces to the window too then, to say goodbye to our temporary hometown, still asleep in the mist and the quiet that lays itself down before the day awakes.
We stopped an hour out of town at a farm stall, to inhale the morning smells of baking and vetkoeks griddling and coffee percolating and plan our route in the air - a vaguely gestured finger the seven hundred kilometres from there to our destination. In the parking lot there were two men, cradling pigeons in their hands. They passed them over to us, powdered downy things that struggled as we held them to our chests, then swung them out, up and out into the air, where - snap - wings unfurled and flight! Oh! Hearts fill, watching them take to the sky and wheel, smaller and smaller into the sharp speck of the sun.
I know what came next too, after the video stops. Put your arms out, one of us said. And we did, seven arms out into the blind-white sun, into the soft-strong slipstream that sucks at your fingertips, both wonderful and awful.
Up, he said, and down.
Up, and down.
A flock of finger feathers, beating slowly, then faster, until one little green car out to conquer the world must surely lift up, up, up and away.
Two pairs of sockless feet waving out a car window, toes wiggling in the sunshine, as the mountains of the Karoo rush by, as life rushes by.
I know how the backseat of that car tastes, of damp seat-sponge and shoe-dust and fresh-baked bread. The tomatoes rolling on the back shelf, a feathery head on my shoulder as we roll too, like kittens, soft-limbed and lazy and tangled. The bags at our feet, under our elbows, on our laps - like the barely-there mornings when we used to pile everything into our car for the long drive to France, cushioned in on all sides by belongings, pressing our faces to the window to say goodbye to the cat (who always knew and sat ramrod stiff with her back to us, refusing to forgive).
I know what came before, hours and hours before, before there was a road to wave toes at. The yawning dawn reunion at the top of High Street, eyes gummed half shut, trailing hastily packed suitcases. We put our faces to the window too then, to say goodbye to our temporary hometown, still asleep in the mist and the quiet that lays itself down before the day awakes.
We stopped an hour out of town at a farm stall, to inhale the morning smells of baking and vetkoeks griddling and coffee percolating and plan our route in the air - a vaguely gestured finger the seven hundred kilometres from there to our destination. In the parking lot there were two men, cradling pigeons in their hands. They passed them over to us, powdered downy things that struggled as we held them to our chests, then swung them out, up and out into the air, where - snap - wings unfurled and flight! Oh! Hearts fill, watching them take to the sky and wheel, smaller and smaller into the sharp speck of the sun.
I know what came next too, after the video stops. Put your arms out, one of us said. And we did, seven arms out into the blind-white sun, into the soft-strong slipstream that sucks at your fingertips, both wonderful and awful.
Up, he said, and down.
Up, and down.
A flock of finger feathers, beating slowly, then faster, until one little green car out to conquer the world must surely lift up, up, up and away.
posted by Riona at
3:17 PM
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