Butterfly Soup. Nancy Pinard

movement, its freedom. He caws like the gull and flaps his arms. He pictures himself bailing out, as he had from swings when he was a child, then jackknifing into free fall, arms and legs spread wide to embrace the approaching earth like skydivers in James Bond movies.

      Everett quells the urge. From this height, he’d never survive. Suicide is the coward’s way out. But if he were closer to the water…the boat heads toward shore. He’ll descend soon. He doesn’t have much time. The buckles are locked into each other. He kicks his feet and plucks at the webbing threaded through the buckles on the crotch strap. Finally he pulls it free. The waist strap is all that remains. It’s tight, and he can’t see it over the bulk of his life jacket to loosen it. While he fumbles with it, jerking and cursing, the boat slows down. Everett’s chute drops like a reeled-in kite. His time is short. The wind blows him toward shore. The beach approaches. The frat boys gesture, pointing and waving their arms. They holler and motion to pull down, like a train engineer on the whistle. He pulls all right—at the strap under his gut.

      The boat idles offshore. The chute drops farther. The engine glubs. The calliope frolics. He’s almost too late, too close. Then the strap gives and he’s free. He thrusts his head out to propel his weight forward, spreads his arms and legs, then smacks on the blue-gray mirror.

      When Everett regains consciousness, a frat boy’s face is enlarged in the center of an expanse of sky. “He’s coming to.” The boy’s voice is soprano and distorted. Other faces appear in a circle around his. Water runs from the kid’s sun-bleached hair down his neck and chest. The seagulls’ cries no longer sound like laughter. The clamor of the calliope mocks at his pain.

      “Back off, everybody,” the kid orders. The perimeter of faces clears out. “You okay, mister?” His eyes look earnest, as though the answer matters.

      Yeah, Everett mouths. He has no air in his lungs. His head aches. His skin stings all over.

      “What the hell were you trying to do? Are you fuckin’ crazy, man?”

      Everett gasps to breathe. There’s a crushing weight on his chest.

      “That life jacket saved you. Lie still. The ambulance will be here soon.”

      Everett heaves himself partway up. The kid pushes on his shoulders to lay him back down, but Everett resists. “No hospital.” He shakes the kid’s hands off. “I’m fine.”

      “You’re not fine. They have to check you out. Insurance stuff.”

      “Hell with insurance…They’re not…checking me out… I’m outa here…soon as I get…my breath.”

      A siren is coming toward the docks. Everett rolls onto his hands and knees, struggles up and staggers in the sand. The kid is on his tail, fussing at him.

      Everett waves him off. “Beat it, kid. And while you’re at it, get a real job.”

      “Crazy bastard.”

      Everett grabs his duffel off the sand and heads for the bathhouse. When he looks back, the kid is staring after him. Everett hates the boy’s sculpted chest and taut, square jaw.

      Back in the car, Everett cuddles his dog. The wind was cold on the trip across the bay, and the afternoon sun feels good, baking him through the windshield. Now that he’s been to Oz and back, he’s decided to name the dog Kansas. She puts her front paws in his lap and licks the sweat from his palms. Her tongue massages his calluses, but its grainy texture feels a bit removed until she moves to the skin on his wrist. His skin stings all over where he hit the water. His stomach is sour, his saliva bitter, but he’s not sorry he did it. The way that boy fussed to save him, maybe there’s something of his life left to salvage.