By John Adams
She seizes the magazine before I can zip up my backpack. “Lourean! Explain this
FILTH!”
“Sweet Momma! It-it-it ain’t…”
“Aviatrix Monthly?”
“Sweet Momma, I…” I inhale. Decisively. “I been takin’ aviatrix classes.”
She hurls the magazine, spilling her apple juice. “No daughter of mine’s aviatrixin’! Your pappy was an aviatrix. Cheated on me with my only half-sister!”
“Sweet Momma! Modern aviatrixin’s different! There’s regulations!”
“Hush, Lourean.” She gestures to our fellow Delta 3715 to Tupelo passengers.
“Snoopers.”
I exhale. Meekly.
And later, when frantic flight attendants ask if anyone can fly a plane, I pretend I’m
reading the in-flight magazine
John Adams (he/him/his) writes about teenage detectives, robo-butlers, and cursed cowboys in a genre he’s coined “absurdist speculative melodrama” – meaning “monsters being monstrous, aliens being alien, and humans being all too painfully human.” His short stories have been published by Australian Writers’ Centre, Dream of Shadows, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Intrinsick, Metaphorosis, Paper Butterfly, and Wyldblood. His plays have been selected for productions and readings by the William Inge Theater Festival, Whim Productions, the Barn Players, and the Midwest Dramatists Conference. He performs across the U.S. with That’s No Movie, a multi-genre improv team. Web: https://johnamusesnoone.com/. Twitter: @JohnAmusesNoOne.
The Birdseed 