Flying North

By Jeremy Akel

The last time I saw my father, the sandpipers were flying north for the summer. At my feet, miniature crabs hid behind half-eaten groundfish, the discards of shrimp boats trawling just offshore.

The sandpipers, fat from winter feeding, ignored them; it was late March, and above me waves of shorebirds had begun to return to the Arctic. Summers are difficult for migratory birds. There is abundance in warmer weather, with mayflies and crickets and on occasion a tart berry, but also competition, and sandpipers are by nature solitary.

“I’m gonna sell a truckload this year, I know it.” My dad and I walked along the shoreline, the saltwater foaming and bubbling between our toes. “Trust me, when I come home, things are gonna change. I swear.”

When he said this, a sandpiper hopped once, then twice, and then, yielding to some primeval instinct, took wing and flew away.

THE END

Author Bio: Jeremy Akel is an attorney and also teaches Aikido, a Japanese martial art. His work has been published in Altered Reality Magazine, Rue Scribe, Sundial Magazine, and Ink Pantry.

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