The baby red panda has been born but not yet given a name.
News reporters cling to telephone poles to broadcast live from Wrightsville Beach as Hurricane Hilda tries to blast them off their feet. One is even holding an umbrella; surely an open invitation to be lifted skyward.
Your ex lives in Wilmington, which, right now, is Hilda’s eye. You wonder if he ran when they told everyone to flee.
Baron. That’s a dignified name for a small red panda whose conception was broadcast live on all the major network stations.
Will, your ex, isn’t the type to evacuate, or to follow directions for that matter. He always believed he knew best, which is why he was the one to leave you in New York and fly south.
Baron, as you now think of him, was conceived 130 days ago. Born at 3 ounces, he was undersized, and would have been the one abandoned by their mother if they’d come in a pair, but lucky Baron was a single birth.
The networks are covering Baron’s birth and Hilda’s fury simultaneously, a split screen thing letting people see the panda’s little face and the scary-looking orange swirl that shows Hilda’s progress.
You try to squint one eye to block out the storm and focus only on the cub. But it’s like looking at a car wreck when they broadcast live video of streets streaming with flood waters, cats being carried by the back of their necks by rescue workers, an elderly man being helped into a rowboat in a river that once was his backyard.
You can’t help but watch.
Will would not flee, you decide. He would stay and try to help barricade the waters, board up windows, save old men and cats. You would have run as soon as they said go. Will was always braver. That was why he left and flew south, which is now being consumed by Hilda.
The zoo director tells the very young reporter Baron’s mother will only stay with him for about a year. Then he’s on his own. This is inconceivable to you. Surely Baron, born into the world tiny, toothless and unseeing, wants to spend more time with his mother, maybe his whole life.
The reporters have left the beaches, abandoning their posts, but the camera people are still filming the sideways rain, the waves slamming the muddy beaches, the teetering telephone poles. The salt from the assailing ocean settles on the camera lens, nearly obliterating the view.
Flee! You want to holler at the camera operators as they dig in their feet to document the storm for viewers.
Stay! You want to tell Baron’s mother, stay for a lifetime, stay forever.
Will left even after you asked him to stay. A hundred times, you asked him. A thousand times. A million. He said he knew it was for the best. Now he is at the very heart of Hurricane Hilda. Now he must know it was wrong to go. Now maybe he will reconsider and leave the rain-soaked south and come home. Stay a lifetime. Stay forever.
