Excerpts

Airline Pilot Claudia

      Living life’s not difficult; it’s the dying part that’s hard. I’m drained and so tired, practically lifeless. Just trying to decide what to tackle beyond the usual——stuff that used to consume most of my time when I was healthy——is exhausting enough on one of my good days. More often now I feel the need to jot “get out of bed” on my list of things to do.

The Aardvark

     The little wooden carving standing on the bric-a-brac shelf catches my eye once more. I pick up the knickknack and run my thumb across the ridges in the wood. I marvel how the contours were carefully shaved until it took the shape of an animal. I wonder who on earth carved it. And how it made its way to Frankfurt's crowded Roman Platz where Lily picked it out just for me. I turn it over in the palm of my hand. There is no ink stamp or engraved initials indicating the artist. It's simply an aardvark with a long snout and enormous ears.
     As I replace it on the shelf, I strengthen my fortitude on how I'll focus my days. No matter how drained I may become from time to time, right now I feel newly energized.

Blind Charlotta

      Charlotta faced the bathroom sink mirror oblivious of her reflection. She grabbed her toothbrush, squeezed Crest across the bristles and stuffed it in her mouth. Though no longer able to enjoy the view, she turned out of habit to the window as she scrubbed her teeth. A morning-person rising well before daybreak, Charlotta missed watching sunrise colors reflect off Manner Lake, especially in winter. If her husband Alexander were awake, she’d have asked him whether the lake was iced over or if Canada geese still huddled in the middle where a dark patch of frigid water was always last to freeze. Wondering, she shrugged, turned back to the sink and spat.

Orphaned Susan

      A deep throbbing in Susan Medina de Pascal’s lower back woke her from an afternoon nap. She rolled over on the couch and rubbed circles on her protruding stomach. Curious, she raised her head from a stack of throw pillows. Puffed ankles and swollen feet nearly hidden from view by her growing abdomen peeked back at her. She wiggled her toes.

Homeless Kimberly

      Kimberly stepped out of the public bus doubting anyone guessed she was homeless——neither the driver, nor the people climbing in after she’d gotten off. Dressed in black denim jeans and a red T-shirt, she wore a small book pack on her back and carried a canvas beach bag slung over one shoulder. She knew she didn’t fit the profile. Never had when she was twenty-four, never would. Even now at the age of fifty-six.

Universal Airlines Flight 2903

     Four hundred thousand pounds of jet maneuvered by microcomputer auto-flight systems banked left to precisely twenty-five degrees.

     Keying her microphone, Charlotta said, “Universal 2903 is entering the hold at CIVET, flight level one-eight-zero at zero-four-zero-three Zulu.” She spoke matter-of-factly.

     “Roger, Universal 2903.”

     Charlotta monitored the navigational display on the instrument panel in front of her. She watched the white triangle, which represented the aircraft’s nose, track the holding pattern’s magenta line. After resuming a wing’s level attitude, the plane proceeded ten miles on the outbound leg before making another one hundred eighty-degree turn inbound.

Earth

     “Within the planet’s core on the mantle above molten lava,” Mrs. Wexler had read from a text, “sixteen massive pieces of rocky crust drift like a jigsaw puzzle. In constant motion for millions of years, these tectonic plates proceed gradually around the earth’s sphere. At times the masses thrust beneath one another and lock together. Unable to move freely, the unrelieved energy builds. When the stress exceeds the strength of the rock, the earth’s crust bends and breaks free at fault zones, dislocating and snapping into a new position. Whole continents transfigure. Mountains tilt up from flatlands jutting new peaks miles into the sky. Sinking sea basins cut deep canyons on the ocean floor. Volcanoes erupt to spew ash and magma from the bowels of the planet scarring the landscape and changing the weather.”

Friend and Airline Pilot Colleague Lily

      I thought back to the day I realized Claudia was losing her battle with cancer. And that she was facing impending death. While rocking the chair before the fireplace, I remembered her saying how she missed jet-chasing the sunset, the orange glow of the moon rising above clouds over the Atlantic near Newfoundland, and the Aurora Borealis’ cascading lights of yellow and green.

For more excerpts, Search Inside AARDVARK MEMORIES at Amazon.com.

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©2004 Lisa Stout   All rights reserved.   Obtain author permission to reprint.