InTransit

Ithumbed the crusty edges of the photographs in my traveling trunk. Its small compartments contained the few things from home. I pulled out the stack— mismatched rectangles of captured light. I turned over one marked “Rei’s thirteenth birthday.” In it I was smiling, holding a lorikeet in front of a bright red baseball diamond, long, white-blonde curls puffed out from under my pink cap.

When I was fourteen, I shaved my head. It had been a hard spring. The baseball field had closed, and my best friend, Tullis, moved away. His family was from Kansas, and they finally had enough of the stuffy heat of the military base. My lorikeet died in May, and my dad wouldn’t let me get another. But he did let me get a motorbike when I was seventeen. The next picture was of it, shiny, black and purple.

I rubbed my head, not shaved now, but short. The white-blonde had faded into a dirty mix of brown and blonde over time. I had a crooked two-inch scar under my left eye now. It did not appear in any of the pictures. I touched my left cheek and felt the scar. It didn’t hurt anymore. I put the pictures away and closed the truck. Moving to the window, I picked up my mug and took a sip of lukewarm coffee through a straw. As I looked out the small, round window, the moon grew tinier, sliding out of view. Soon, the grey-blue mass of Earth would appear, and I would be landing in my new home.

51 Short Story