The Desert | a short story

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? 

..too slow and he’s gone. Off to the next house and the next, sun on one side, 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. 

This boy lived across the street and over one. She had joined a gang of bigger kids in his basement once. Low-ceilinged, Dukes of Hazard 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 first have to give something up. 

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

Standing beside him, her small body knows that it can win. She’s run this race countless times, in the shadow behind her eyes: Here, in her dark, she is big. In her shadow, 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.

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 finish line. 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 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. She disappears into a dust of her own making., in this place where she has already won.