I cling to Jim, our fingers curled together like kelp ribbons. Holding a stranger’s hand is uncomfortably intimate. 

“Tell me more about Ava,” he shouts over incessant recorded instructions.   

Bags tumble from overhead bins. I lean closer. “She loves animals, been begging for an axolotl.”  

The plane tilts. Drops. My nails dig into Jim’s weathered skin. 

“My grandson had fish. Never cleaned the damn tank unless I paid him.” Jim’s voice cracks at the memory. 

Ceiling-panels spring open.  

“She’s only seven. I need...” The air is sucked from my lungs. 

As directed, Jim tightens his mask before helping with mine.

Christy Hartman pens short fiction from her home between the ocean and mountains of Vancouver Island Canada. She writes about the chasm between love and loss and picking out the morsels of magic in life’s quiet moments.

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