My least favorite place in the world is elbows deep in soil leached of nutrients from decades of large-scale agriculture—and a dead albatross in my arms. Sadly, it’s happening more and more. I top their graves with a native plant, something that grew alongside them for millennia before humans arrived with their predators—in particular, dogs—and ripped out native ecosystems for wide swaths of mono-crops—in particular, sugar.
I cradle a fluffy downy chick in my hands.
I think of albatross as one of the original ancestors of these islands. Albatross have soared over the world’s oceans for millions of years, their slender wingtips curvsiving the ocean’s surface, only seeking land to breed. If they could figure out a way to float an egg on the sea, they’d never drop their spatula-sized feet on anything hard. But albatross are ground nesters. Most of their oceanic breeding islands are uninhabited and free of land-based predators, except for Hawaii filled with human-introduced toothy predators.
I lift the fluffy downy chick to my face and inhale, taking in its sea scent. This chick has yet to see the ocean, yet to see her wing-stubs stretch their full six-and-a-half-foot length, yet to use her built-in GPS to find her way across the expanse of the largest ocean in the world.
And I bury her.
—
Kim Steutermann Rogers lives in Hawaii. Her chapbook Denatured: Stories of Change will publish in June 2025 from Emerge Literary Journal. Her science journalism has published in National Geographic, Smithsonian, and Audubon and prose, recently, in Ghost Parachute, and Gooseberry Pie Lit Magazine. Kim’s work has been nominated for Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fiction, and Best of the Net honors. She’s been awarded residencies at Storyknife Writers Retreat and at Dorland Mountain Arts.
