This New and Poisonous Air by Adam McOmber Page B

immediately and unthinkingly physical. There was nothing we would not attempt in the deserted barns and forest clearings around the university. We developed a certain mania in each other’s presence, breaking from our learned structures and tearing at each other, biting and pushing until we were each spent, and then just as quickly going at it again. It seems foolish for me, an old man, to sit and recall these pleasures and nearly as obscene for me to write them down in detail, especially when, quite possibly, someone will read this piece of writing, as I’ve been reading my own father’s journals. What could I hope to gain by setting down the specifics of my entanglements with Amon? Joy recollected is indeed no longer the emotion itself. Nor is lust. Nor passion. Suffice it to say we were not gentle with each other. When we wanted to call out and draw attention to ourselves, we instead bit into one another’s flesh.
    After that day in the hills when Amon inexplicably stepped into the air, we were distracted from our bodies and drew closer because of it. We ran experiments, having learned inductive reasoning from our fathers, and attempted to recreate the circumstances that led to Amon’s “miracle.” We added and subtracted elements but never found the desired effect. Amon was unable to climb off the ground even an inch. He punched hay bales in our
barn from frustration until his knuckles were bloodied, and the stableman had to wrap them.
    I pointed out that it might have been Amon’s anger at his father that day which produced the effect, and so he attempted to conjure similar feelings the next windy day on the hill—to enlarge himself like a sail with his emotions. Still nothing came of it. He worried it might have been a specific quality of anger that could not simply be reproduced via force of will, but I persuaded him against such a theory. Amon was an emotional person and there were days he vented continually, cycling through entire operas of sorrow and rage. Certainly, he would have landed on the right formulation in all of that.
    He wanted to leap off the cliff that overlooked the river in an attempt to force a reoccurrence, but I wouldn’t allow it, arguing the jump met too few of the requirements necessary for recreation, and there were sharp rocks in the river, only one of which would need to make contact with his skull in order to ensure that he never rose again.
    I suppose it could be argued that I intentionally sabotaged these experiments, fearing that a repeat of Amon’s levitation would draw a line between us. He would go where I could not follow, and I couldn’t bear that. I’d only recently found him and needed to keep us both on the ground.
    One night, after weeks of discrete satisfaction, I heard a tapping on my window glass. My bedroom was on the second floor of our stone house, and the tapping roused me from sleep. Perhaps still half inside a dream, I pictured a grotesque bird outside my window with claws on the tips of its wings, scales on its chest, and Amon’s head sewn to its neck. The thread was drawn taught against his skin and caused it to pucker in places so his flesh gaped. I could see through to the dark inner-body beneath. The abomination leered at me through the drapery, and when
I realized that the vision was not entirely a product of my dreaming, I jumped from my bed, shaken. Amon was actually outside my second-story window, though of course he hadn’t become half bird. His body was as solid and consistent as ever, and for once he seemed pleased. I pulled open the window and glanced downward, sickened by the height and the possibility of a fall, but Amon stood midair without fear, boot heels locked, hands clasped behind his back. “Good evening, Roddy,” he said. “I thought you might be lonely.”
    “How—” I answered, unable to find the necessary words to complete my thought.
    “Not sure, actually. Would you like to come out and try?” I recoiled, but his hand was