The Jabberwock Valentine

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Out of New York, the Memphis-bound jetliner slanted its nose below the horizon and knifed into the cumulus. The clouds, so pristinely white and inviting moments ago, swallowed the aircraft in a slithery gray ooze. In my present mood it was no strain on the imagination to feel that the descent was into a repulsive nether region, primeval, roiling with unknown forces.

I looked at her lovely profile hovering in the seat beside me, looked away, forced my head to rest against the seat, and drew a long, careful breath.

I was not experiencing a reaction to flying. I flew as naturally and exuberantly as I sang off-key in an invigorating morning shower.

I was ridden with this certainty: that she was going down into the presence of death.

Since the spiritualist and shrink can’t explain it, I can go no further than the experts, the specialists. I can only make a statement about that which transpires.

The first transpiration in my memory was of myself as a young boy out racing about on his first bicycle. From nothingness came a sudden sensation. It burst over me with the force of a silent scream. Colors spun through my head; they froze, in an image of a boy, myself, tangled and bleeding in the ruin of the bicycle at the next intersection.

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