The Desert

The sun came up each day in the front yard and set in the back. She took for granted that this was how it was at everyone’s house, on everyone’s street. Front to back, back to front. All of these houses, two floors and a basement. Two cars, coming and going. 

Each day, the mailman came and went. The slot at eye level, she longed to pull as he fed the letters through. A wordless connection thought the tiny window. Would he tug back? 

But then it was too late, he was gone. Off to the next house and the next, sun on one side and shade on the other. 

All of these houses, these streets lined up in a row might have gone on forever. It occurred to her that at some point they would meet sea or mountain or desert and have to end. No more houses, no more letters. Tomorrow, she would be brave.

The day was dry. Standing on the curb in front of her house, she didn’t see any girls playing. Though there probably were, it was not the girls she was interested in. Just the boys; one in particular. 

The boy she most wanted to beat lived across the street and over one. She had joined a gang of bigger kids in his basement once. Low-ceilinged, Dukes of Hazard was on the TV. Shoes on, everybody was helping themselves. She hadn’t been sure if they were allowed; there was no grown-up to ask. 

Sitting on the floor, she wanted to leave. Also, she wanted to stay, having worked so hard to get there. 

Only later did she learn that if you start digging a hole with your hands, somewhere you will find this basement. Dirt under your fingernails, to get something, you have to give something else up. 

The boy’s legs are twice as long as hers but she challenges him to a running race all the same. From the curb in front of her house to the street light at the end of the block.

Standing in the shadow of him, her small body knows that she can win. She’s seen it so many times, behind her eyes: In this dark, she is big. The houses and the cars all go dark. So does the streetlight and now it’s just the two of them. He could be any boy. In this place where she is bigger, she has already won. 

But today, in his shadow, some of the children have noticed and are watching. Others have noticed and gone back to their own games. 

One two three GO and he is gone, sprinting ahead.

Running behind him, the air feels heavy like dirt. The street grows long like a tunnel and she can see now that there is no end. She has so much digging left to do. No, there is no finish line. There is no boy. Only street after street. 

Front to back, back to front, she keeps running because the race isn’t over until she stops. So long as she keeps running, she still gets to win. 

She runs to the dry edge and beyond to where they stop making houses. To where the sun goes whichever way she wants and nobody is watching. She runs until everyone’s gone in for dinner and her legs have grown long, casting tall shadows of their own. She imagines her legs transforming into those of the animals she sees on TV. Cartoon legs, roadrunner legs, wheels churning the desert into dust. 

Here in the desert she runs on empty roads with her eyes closed. She runs though electrical storms, her hands reaching for the sky. There is only one player now. She disappears into a dust of her own making.