Me: sitting outside with a cigar and a bourbon and soda.
My wife: in a plane somewhere far away, flying, hurtling to help a dear niece.
Happy niece. Sad me. My mate is in the sky, therefore, my eyes, too, focus heavenward. Every plane I see is hers, soaring, precarious, supported by oh so thin air and physics. I trust her life to this?
Then, the unmistakable sound: whonk, whonk, whonk, two geese fly into my range of vision, winging urgently somewhere. In a second I know why. More whonking, more geese winging but from the other direction, from behind me out of the east, visible only as they clear our apartment building. A V of geese is flying past directly above me, each blaring messages one to the other and other and other down the line to the last one, the Private First Class Goose. Now another V flies above me, just seconds behind the first which I still see flying west into the cloud-shrouded sunset. Another few seconds, another V. Serial lines in the sky, dotted black lines moving across the sky, RAF and American bombers on their way to Dresden. Now, wait: here’s another and a few seconds later a fifth line, squadrons of geese, V’s of geese, raucous, dotted black lines one after the other moving above me, flying west to meet a fate I know nothing about.
