Odonata by Steve Saulsbury

      Lise1011 CC



Odonata


    Out of the blue, I thought of driving with no hands. I called my brother.
    Judd was captive at home, recovering from a fractured hip. I asked how he was.
    “I get up, go to the bathroom, and out to my chair,” Judd said.
    “Remember that time we stayed at Uncle Bob’s? Riding in his yellow convertible?”
    “Not really. How old were we? Hold on, I’m turning down the tv.”
   I could see the day like a television show, a bright afternoon in the late ‘60s. Out near the community college. Uncle Bob had on Bermudas. His big blocky fingers squeezed a brown beer bottle, condensation seeping between them. A dragonfly on the antenna, and something serious, - Vietnam news - on the radio. 
    “I guess you were only four. He was driving with no hands,” I said.
    “I wonder if he was drunk.” Judd chuckled. “The guy was a lush. Remember?”
    I’d told Dad about the no hands driving. It seemed so strange. Not something Dad would do. Dad said, no way, that Plymouth never stays aligned. He was probably steering with his knee. 
    Not so strange, then. But his knee was nasty, mottled with psoriasis. 
   Judd had been deep in the back. I remembered listening for the crunch of his snow cone to reassure me, but only hearing the pfft of another brown bottle.
   “I have a broken window,” announced Judd now. “Some kids. Dad was good at glazing. Remember that? He’d go to the hardware store, buy a pane of glass wrapped in brown paper. Like a porno magazine.” 
    I started seeing the day again, like flickering snow on a television.
   Uncle Bob had shifted the beer to his left and laid his right on my thigh. I turned my head to look for Judd. We had drifted to a stop in a parking lot.
    His hand squeezed higher. 
    “Look at the dragonfly,” I’d said, but Uncle Bob kept looking at me.
    Captive in that big yellow car. The one that wouldn’t stay aligned.
    “That’s a damselfly,” he replied.
    I had him in my peripheral vision. And I was faster.
    Judd said something, but I was flying away.

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Steve Saulsbury lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. A writer of flash fiction, his work has appeared in many online journals and several printed collections, including the 2024 London Independent Story Anthology. For his 61st trip around the sun, Steve is often accompanied by his four-year-old grandson and German Shepherd, Zuzu.