Which Way is South

by Alexis Kennell

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The birds seem confused this year. I think they’re supposed to be flying south. At least
that’s what I was always told growing up. But these birds fly in a v-shape, down Avenue Y to the east, then rounding back up Avenue Y to the west as if to ask, which way is South? I walk on the sidewalk below them and stop just to watch. The birds bolt south, and I root for them — I even say go go go under my breath, the warm puffs of air visibly mingling with November’s bite. But the birds don’t end up making it south. They go north.

I took the B train to Sheepshead Bay from Broadway and Lafayette to visit my father for Thanksgiving. I haven’t seen him since I left for NYU in August. The station’s only a short walk to his house on Brigham. The birds loop back around, the fluttering of a thousand feathers audible in the midday Brooklyn air. I don’t even know what kind of birds they are. All I know is that the absurdity of it makes me feel something I can’t describe. I can only compare it to other unexplainable feelings, like seeing a flyer for a manic depression research study and noticing every single one of the contact slips ripped off, or the feeling I got when my father confiscated my stash and I later found him smoking it alone in the garage.

I exhale and continue walking, my gaze tilted to the sky. Not one cloud is up there, just the hypnotic blue I often get lost in on my walks through the city. I call them ‘swimming.’ All it takes is a playlist filled with Talking Heads and The Lemon Twigs, a good high, and an unmapped route through any of the boroughs. There’s just something about doing private things in public. I’m only a few streets away from my father’s house, but merely the thought of telling him I dropped out of school makes me nauseous. So when I reach the cross street, I don’t end up making it south to Brigham. I go north.