Lincoln Wimbley writes a story at 37,000 feet

Featured in

  • Published 20240507
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-95-5
  • Extent: 203pp
  • Paperback, ePub, PDF, Kindle compatible

THE CLOUDS WERE ghost white. No. Wait. Were they grey tinged? Lincoln was guessing. He was middle seat and the eighty-­year-­old (?) lady asleep next to him had pulled the shade halfway down. Couldn’t see much but a dull wing. Wait! A wing tainted with streaks of powdered coal. A grey wing coated in shadow. Riled with…what were those called? Divots? Or was that golf?

Oh, whatever. Why dress it up? It was a wing like every other plane wing that no one would ever care about. But if it failed in any way? Maybe let’s not, when ten miles up. With that pregnant woman across the aisle. The sweet, honeymooning newlyweds in front of him. The bald girl who kept sticking her finger into her doll’s empty eye socket.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Adrian Todd Zuniga

Adrian Todd Zuniga is the host and creator of Literary Death Match, which he’s brought to seventy-three cities around the world. He’s author of...

More from this edition

The octopus within

Non-fictionI’ve now watched quite a few doctors sketch my thyroid on office pads, something they all seem to love to do, relishing that butterfly shape, the two spreading wings. They do shade-hatching on the left or right lobe, colour in a dark circle to represent the tumour and draw four little dots for the parathyroid glands. I have started to look forward to this moment when a medical specialist transforms suddenly into an artist, taking pride in their drawing, picking up a special pen with a thin black nib, concentrating on making this invisible organ real to me. They are maybe unaware that through their own idiosyncratic drawing styles, they become instantly more interesting as people. They hand over the piece of paper and explain the next steps, and I take their drawings home, magnet them to the fridge beside the more exuberant pictures done by my kids, start making the necessary calls, and turn up on time to the next appointment, curious as a child in kindergarten.  Which is how I first learnt that there is an octopus within.

Bonfire

FictionIt was a loud dinner. Everything was loud. The murmuring soundtrack of free jazz seemed to emphasise laughs and guffaws. He grew drunker and drunker and toyed with his food, which no one even noticed. Normally, he would wolf down everything they cooked, but he twisted his fork in the spaghetti and just kept twisting. As he was on serving duty, he cleared it up without anyone even registering he’d barely taken a bite.

Survey

FictionBut I have long lost my personal thread to this place, I realise, and thinking of this loss I almost feel mournful for a former life I see now as though in the third person, a life belonging to an altogether different man. Perhaps it is for the best that those old threads are cut, for it means I am free of them.

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.