Void

Photo by Molly Rapp

A car is abandoned on the side of the road. Its body is crunched like a soda can against an unbending tree. Grass licks its tires and leaves brush against its root. The keys still jingle in the ignition and it is still hot from a long drive.
~

Dark wings thrust her from the car, pushing her out the window. She claws onto the door frame. Blood and broken glass. Her face tilts upwards toward the evening's burning storm clouds. Closed eyes, wings dodging lightning, her nose leading the way, she is searching.

He is searching too. He has abandoned the car, stripping himself of brown seatbelt, letting his black wings bloom anew, forcing himself from the moving vehicle. He searches for her.

His wings lift him up to the sky to see her form dot the horizon then disappear behind a bleeding cloud. Wings aflame, he urges himself closer, nearer.

She hovers over a deep and shimmering ocean. The wind cools her wings, chills her body, and whips her hair across her face. But even blinded she sees its offer. Its waves beckon. She desires its ice. And so she relaxes her wings, swan dives, flips and slips into the water. Splashless. She is absorbed.

He sees her allow herself to be consumed by the void and although he moves quickly, reaching out for her slender foot, he feels only the wake of air.

Flying low, his fingers trail in the obsidian liquid. The sky is an empty black. He drifts over the surface, waiting for her to come back to him. Lost to him, she is in a place he can never reach. He lifts his head to the heavens and wails.