Low Altitude

by Fiona Lynch

You think you’re doing ok, definitely not over it, but you’re starting to venture out, working, shopping, dropping the kids off to squads for some semblance of normal, when you lock on someone in the pool car park—about the right height, mousey hair, same sartorially disastrous tracksuit—you will him to turn because the profile is uncanny, even flicking his head to redirect a miscreant fringe in a way that’s tattooed on you, and as if he’s heard, he pivots—but the nose is all wrong, hair middle-parted and you feel it in your guts like a plane dropping too fast—a moment you try to conceal because it’s probably nothing and you don’t want to seem like the nervy type, which is odd because if a plane is going down, bogus zen won’t change the outcome—so what if passengers think you’re a panic merchant—and that’s when the eldest of your chlorinated children asks what munchies you brought because they’re always ravenous after clocking laps and you realise you only have puppy snacks for the expensive, untrainable mutt who seems to be an exception to the poodle gene smarts, so you swing into McDonalds for fries to subvert several kilometres of whingeing because you don’t have the stomach for it and may say something regrettable to three kids who are aching for their dad—and fried food (using the term loosely) plus packets of prone-to-explode barbeque sauce seem innocuous compared to thoughts about becoming one of those mums who brews a family-size batch of warm milk and barbiturates, which won’t ever happen, but similar to other options that won’t be exercised, is curiously comforting, like puppy school, or a life jacket with a dinky torch and a two-dollar whistle.

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