Christopher Notarnicola
The hurricane is days away, and dozens of kiteboarders have claimed the beach. From a hotel rooftop, it seems impossible that they could avoid collisions as they crest the waves and spin like wild through the wind. You’re out of breath when you summit the steps, wheezing like you have something to say, maybe about the kites that plume like perpetually falling parachutes, maybe about the kiteboarder who was killed last week when a squall sent him spiraling into the twelfth floor of this building, maybe about the nightmares you’ve been having since the Doppler took over the news cycle. Gunmetal clouds strafe the beach. A strong gust holds back my hair, and the split ends whip at your chin. You’re working to calm your panting, hugging your chest, chewing your lower lip. I should have put you on Keto when you were a boy. I should have bought you a shortboard and dropped you at the inlet every day for a year. I should have slept with a lesser lawyer and let your father take the spoils. Sand dunes tear away in long, taunting ribbons. A curtain of rain wafts through the horizon’s open window. You lick salt from your teeth and join me at the roof’s edge. When you manage to catch your breath, maybe you’ll mention the latest change in windspeed. Maybe you’ll summon the statistic you’ve been repeating to strangers since you read about the correlation between nomenclature and weather-related fatalities, how lady-named storms cause more deaths than their gentlemanly counterparts. I hope one day you’ll tell me you’re still a brave little boy in the raging face of the feminine. I hope you’ll tell me you’ll always be the kind of man who can hawk one up when his mother gets manic. Tell me without telling me that you’d spit without thought into the wildest wind. A kiteboarder veers from the group, fighting the brake lines, flailing ashore. A royal palm frond crashes to the pool deck. You press your belly to the railing and exhale over the edge. I turn my good ear to the wind. Your breathing is almost back to baseline, so nearly a sound I’d be proud to claim, so nearly in time with the sob of the sea.
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Christopher Notarnicola’s work has appeared in AGNI, American Short Fiction, Bellevue Literary Review, Best American Essays, Best Microfiction, Chicago Quarterly Review, Image, River Teeth, and other publications. Find him in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and at christophernotarnicola.com.