Cormorants

A rottweiler behind chainlink stands and swings its boneknuckle head while the couple quarrel by the dismal predawn roadside.

"We're heading back east," she says.

He kicks at the dirt. "Why do you say back east? You ain't never bin there."

"It's just a way of sayin it. Besides, I suffer from lostalgia."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. You won't get it."

"The fuck? Fuck you. Well hell, I'm mostly through talking anyways."

The dog watches from its shadows and emits a low growl every time Dwight glances its way.

"Suit yerself, but whether you're with me or not, I'm going and you ain't gonna stop me."

"Not unless I throw you over this here fence."

She rolls her eyes and he narrows his.

He sighs. "We really havin this conversation?" he asks, almost gently.

"Appears we are. Ain't no bad thing."

"But we talkin about bad shit. Like dyin. Worse. The future, no?"

"Sure. Yes and no. Love, dyin, kindness, pain. Yesterday and tomorrow. That axe gonna swing itself, use you and me as its own fulcrum."

He's silent for a good minute, then says, "Seems to me you caint rightly figure the light 'less you done reckoned with the dark."

"On the right day I might say otherwise. On this day, who knows? But whatever. Pass me a cancer stick, will ya?" Something sunnier passes over her coyote-fragile face. "Oh hey, know why I love you?"

"Sure don't."

"'Cause when you light my cigarette, you cup the match like you're protecting a good clean heart, even when you know full well it's dirty as hell. Anyways, let's go, hon. You with me?"

"I guess." He looks at her. Alice. The Bonnie to his Clyde. Feels his dirty heart clench.

While she thinks of the cormorants by the bay, that night they let slip the body into such cold waters. How those great oily birds perched on the guano-painted wood pilings like the dark acolytes of apostates, holding aloft dripping black wings in lewd maledictions before hearts yet darker, before offerings more profane.

The guard dog seems to lose interest and drops to the sandy ground like some wounded Serengeti thing.

They both look eastward. Thick red light thinned with watery orange is bleeding into the sky there, below which the smoky blue mountains seem flat as construction paper, and there is no rightful way for them to know if the vermilion eastern morning holds bloodthreat or promise.