art apropos

Illustration by Joseph Laney

The wind was in his hair.
It was cold.
He’d expected that, so no big deal.
But now he remembered,
he had to breathe it.
Oh, sweet fire!
Like he’d chopped a fist of Thai hot chillies,
and skimmed his nostrils.
The searing white blade followed
a prickly butterfly in his chest,
that he wasn’t sure was fear or hypothermia,
and his bronchioles sprouted
instant feathery stalactites,
like a million ninjas’ practiced kill swishes,
deep beneath his ribs.
Then for a moment,
he was drowning in the foamy red,
which was funny,
as he was so far up.
His legs blotted out the ground,
dotted like old wet newsprint held too close.
Oh yes, it was dark.
The moon a pin in the black hay bale
Of the night. Which was perfect.

They’d never see him.

Inspired by the legend of D.B. Cooper, who disappeared in 1971 out of a hijacked plane, never to be seen again.