Dad’s first flight came just years before a stroke took away his words, then spiraled him toward the grave like a penny spun into a charity funnel, round and round and suddenly gone. I’d fled Minnesota for the Pacific coast years before, slid to the bottom corner and stuck. Everything dad cared about was within a hundred miles of his birthplace—it took my wedding before he took to the sky. “Wasn’t bad. Basically a bus.” We hugged at the airport one last time with his words still finding their destinations, meanings still attached to words like goodbye, I love you.
Fall Contest Editor’s Pick. I especially loved the order in which Zebulon told the story, from the title telling us where we’re ending, back to the flight, back to his move west, and then to that five-minute crux, the moment at the airport.—SB
Zebulon Huset is a high school teacher, writer, and photographer. His writing has appeared in Best New Poets, Fence, Meridian, The Southern Review, and many others.