Endangered Species

Flash Fiction Piece

I parked on the road near the bluffs of the Mississippi River in Alton. I’d been birdwatching for the past two days when I spotted a bald eagle near a cave. It was a beautiful creature—white crown, brown plumage, arrowheads for talons, a curved golden beak, wings wide as a small plane. I took photos of the bird, capturing it mid-flight above the dark waves as it dive-bombed for fish.

Happy with my photos, I decided to head to Missouri and celebrate—maybe King Crab legs at the Argosy casino—but first, I needed to take a dump and get gas. I stopped at a Seven-Eleven between the small towns of Godfrey and Bethalto.

As I pumped gas, a man pulled up beside me. He screamed through the window of his beat-up El Camino, “You’re in the wrong part of town, boy!”

I scanned the road for a sign I already knew wasn’t posted. He gawked at me as his engine idled.

“Would you like to take a picture of an endangered species before I go extinct?”

He peered at me, confused. I turned my head and continued pumping gas. He laughed, revved his engine, and sped away.

I watched his car disappear on the horizon, like prey watching for eagles in the sky.