The Nighthawk

Like the Moon, Chordeiles minor are witnesses to the threshold of escape. Circling instinct and memory, girl and bird move in wild companionship.

This story is part of the series “Messengers from Elsewhere”, a mythic ornithology of the Major Arcana that explores archetype through bird symbols, story, and image.

In a narrow, white-sided row home, in a small, nondescript town rooted somewhere in the Appalachian mountains, Sadie considers wading into the waters of autonomy. She is fifteen, dark haired, bare-footed, short-limbed, body thick with American cheese and white bread. She braids and unbraids her dark strands, finger combing them between each braid before beginning again.

The window of her bedroom is open, letting in the thick night air, fragrant with honey suckle. She watches the water-stained floral curtains drift and wave, ponders the street lamp’s yellow glow, the cracked sidewalk below. Tall weeds grow from fissures and bend and wave in the light breeze. The radio plays something soft and sweet, heavy with acoustic guitar. She feels nostalgic and then feels disgusted.

Below her, in the cramped, dusty living room, her parents drunkenly argue against the blare of a television. It is a new argument but it is the same argument they’ve always had, all feeling and fear and blame. It is unfiltered, sloppy, night time arguing. Insecurities grind against one another and splinter under the pressure of never enough. She can hear them through the thin, closed door because she can hear them through every door and every wall in the house.

Sadie is really fucking tired of it. As far as she can tell, her parents have been arguing since the day they met and will do so until the day they die.

She smooths her white camisole tank over her soft belly, newly stolen from Forever 21 at the mall with her friend Stecia. She pulls at her fraying denim cut-off shorts, dislodging them from between her thighs. Sweaty, bored, and stuffed full of teenage righteousness, she paces the floor of her bedroom. She digs her blue-painted toenails in the ancient purple shag carpet and shifts the long acrylic fibers back and forth.

Sadie hears footsteps on the stairs. Heavy, slow: her father’s. In an instant, before she recognizes what she’s doing, she grabs a hold of the window sill, and slips silently out of her room. She lands on the grit of the shingled roof, bare feet slipping slightly. Quickly, she turns, pulls the curtains closed and slides the window down.

Nestling herself into the shadows of the house’s eaves, spine pressing into the dirty plastic siding, she pulls her legs to chest and wraps her bare arms around her knees. Her body tenses, braces for the next few moments. The door to her room swings open, flooding the space with hallway light. Her guts heave.

“Sadie Lynn?” Her father slurs, voice syrupy and low.

She draws in a breath and squeezes her eyes shut. She pictures the process of laying out the pillows and stuffed animals in her bed, sculpting her curled body from the soft goods of her childhood. The purple and blue quilt, stitched with stars by her aunt for Sadie’s tenth birthday, was comforting as she pulled it over the lumpy mass. She found pride in the resting form’s ruse, adjusting it slightly so it would resemble a sleeping teenager to a drunken man in the soft glow of blue Christmas lights.

Sadie wishes he was dead, wishes he would never come home from work. She hates him. She hates a lot of things these days.

She jumps slightly as the door slams shut and feels herself relax as the light from the bathroom window turns off. Warm relief floods her body and her limbs feel loose. She opens her eyes and looks around.

Across the street, a house mirrors hers. All up and down the block, the same narrow, efficiently made house faces itself. Ancient cars and hulking trucks are parked tightly together on the narrow blacktop that separates this side from that side. She's lived here since she was four and knows all of the stories and all of the gossip about all of the families. Their disdain and judgement comes cloaked in polite, neighborly questions about the pile of boxes on the front porch, the sagging steps, the dirt-caked windows.

At night, they all shut their doors and blinds and mouths. Out here, in the cover of darkness, it is quiet and it is peaceful. From her yellow and white push-up bra, Sadie fishes out a bent cigarette and a purple Bic, both lifted earlier from her mother’s brown leather purse. She lights it and smokes it slowly. When it is finished, she stubs it out on the shingles and tosses the butt into the leaf-clogged gutter. She takes a long deep breath, closes her eyes, exhales out her mouth, and allows the world to dim against the backs of her eyelids. A loose sleep threaded with half dreams finds her. The air stills and cools. She breathes deeply into her belly. Her forehead rests on her knees and the warmth from her mouth falls onto her thighs.

Late night drifts into early morning. The moon is a pale crescent shifting slowly towards the horizon, god’s thumbnail clipping left on the floor of the star-studded sky. In the distance, a thin sound skims the night air, wrinkling the silence. It lands in the center of Sadie’s chest, which tightens against the unknown noise.

Peent.

Sadie floats out of her dream and opens her eyes. Mayflies dart frantically amid the slow circles of moths' flight in the sickly yellow glow of the streetlight. The sky is deep indigo and dawn draws closer. She listens intently, hearing the low drone of air conditioners, the distant rumble of tractor trailers on the interstate, the sharp bark of a small dog that lives 2 blocks over. The moths’ dry bodies tap an erratic beat on the glass.

Peent.

Closer this time. Sadie releases the grip of her knees, lets her legs sprawl in front of her, and turns her head to see something swoop under the street light. It is fast, shaped like a boomerang, and flashes white as it turns. She feels the down hair of her arms and neck prick up.

Peent.

The sharp silhouette slices through the cloud of insects and Sadie watches a dark shape with a forked tail collect the moths and mayflies with a wide-open beak. It flies smoothly in erratic rings under the streetlight’s halo. Then, it drops suddenly and launches back into the darkness. Her stomach drops with it, unsteady as it vanishes. An expansion blossoms in her chest and she is flooded with wanting and sadness in equal measure. She doesn't want it to leave but she also knows it can’t stay.

Peent.¹

The speckled, dark-eyed creature settles along the branch, lying parallel to the rough oak, its shape barely distinct from the bark. It watches as Sadie slips back into the house, and waits until she returns, sneakers laced, pack slung against her back. She swings her legs over the porch roof, finds the rain spout with one foot, the railing with the other, and releases her grip on the roof.

Weightless, Sadie lands with a soft thud on the cracked sidewalk. The bird lifts, feathers nearly silent, and vanishes into the dark.

1. Listen to the call of the common nighthawk at Cornell Labs.