This story was loosely inspired by the song "Cold Desert" by Kings of Leon. What always catches my attention are the opening lyrics:
I'm on the corner, waiting for a light to come on.
That's when I know that you're alone.
These words, and the overall tone of the music, really set the mood for my story. Every time the lumbering bass line and melancholy guitar peals greet my ears, I am always subjected to an acute feeling of heartache. Anthony "Caleb" Followill's already unique voice is loaded with misery as he opens up the song, and it carries through clear to the end. I get the distinct impression that the song is about missing something or someone terribly, and it's performed as though we're privy to vulnerable moment where the mourner has tried--but failed--to drown his sorrows in the bottom of a bottle.
I have complete respect for whatever the Followill brothers had in mind for the meaning of the song. Aside from the music, the title, and the opening lyrics, I let their influence on my story end there.
I wrote this one evening when I didn't want to read and I couldn't sleep. I was suddenly struck with the urgent need to write. I've always wanted to write professionally, and have prayed to the gods of paper pulp that I would one day burst with this very urgent desire to pour myself out onto paper. Experiencing it for the first time was alarming, and needless to say, I acted hastily for fear that it would disappear as quickly as it came.
I hope you enjoy the story now that I've polished it up for easier reading. Upon first review 'the morning after,' I realized that the urge to write is incredible, but if I stay up until 4:30AM fulfilling the urge, my words become a tangled mess akin to a discharged can of silly string.
I've also only included the first half of the story. If you stick around to read my afterthoughts when the story is done, you'll find out more about that.
To wrap up this lengthy caveat, I need everyone to acknowledge that is is INDEED a work of Fiction and nothing more.
Cold Desert
by
Daniel Park
What comes to mind is a child's balloon with an undetectable hole near the knot.
What comes to mind is that this is what it might feel like to bleed to death. Perhaps lying helplessly as warm crimson life pours out of many little wounds. The thought is dark, and I can feel my head give a subtle and involuntary shake, as if my physical body was perplexed that I had even thought of it.
I start to rub my hands together. The world is full of instances wherein nature will always balance things out. Given enough time, the balloon will always surrender the pressurized air. The warm vehicle will always succumb to the biting cold outside. I look at my hands and know that what's inside will always find a way out.
I can feel my eyes shifting out of focus. Glazing over. They were becoming sticky as I pondered the inevitable consumption of everything we know and love. I had forgotten to blink as my mind regarded the insatiable appetite of nature.
I squeeze my eyes shut and roll them around. I flutter my lids, trying to regain my eyesight. Even as I think of it, I am a living example. The arctic desert air is leeching the fluid from my body. Leeching the heat. On a constant mission to equalize pressure and temperature.
I focus my eyes and my attention back to your house down the street. It is still dark.
I am parked on the corner under a streetlight that has blessedly succumbed to nature a long time ago. With my Jeep turned off, I am just another car parked along the road. I could have stayed warm with the engine running, of course, but that posed the chance of me drawing attention. That posed the chance of me being poisoned by my own exhaust fumes. I'm clearly having an epiphanic evening about my own mortality, so I've opted not to expedite the process.
I grab the wool blanket from the seat beside me and wrap it around my shoulders. I gather up fistfuls of the loose material and hug myself. I realize that I can't stop the inevitable chill...but I could try to slow it down.
This desert is always one extreme or another. The heat is so oppressive during the summer months that it becomes a physical weight. It's a burden that the common denizen will carry with them wherever they have the great misfortune of having to walk. During the day, the heat permeates the concrete from above. After the sun has gone down, the heat radiates from the concrete below. Then suddenly, just when one feels like they're pin wheeling their arms on the precipice of insanity, the temperature will take a tragic dip. There will be a blissful few days of tolerable weather, and then nights like this. Nights where you almost start to miss the warmth.
The cold has begun its slow and steady work of numbing. My head and ears are covered okay with a knit cap, but my nose and mouth are exposed. I cover my face with the blanket, peering over my arms. Reminding myself of what a vampire does when he's hiding his face with his cape.
My warm breath stings my cold nose. I run my tongue over my chapped lips and chew on them for a while, trying to soften them up. When I taste blood, I know that I've gone too far. I've always hated chap stick. I wonder if the suffocating sensation I get from greasing up my lips is a sign that I'm claustrophobic.
Living in this climate obviously requires extra precautionary steps to stay healthy. One would think that, after six years of living here, I would have learned by now.
One would think a lot of things, I guess.
What comes to mind is the inability to learn from past mistakes.
What comes to mind is a light switch. Either it's up or down, with the exception of that tiny moment in time as it transits from one position to the other. Normal places have four seasons.
This place has up, down, and a millisecond of neutral.
If anyone here could learn from their past mistakes, no one would live here longer than one calendar year.
What comes to mind is a seesaw. The only thought in a child's mind as they sit at the bottom of a seesaw is when they're going to go back up. They're never worried about going back down again. At their absolute peak, they won't even think about how it feels to be low.
I wiggle my toes. My shoes and socks might as well not even be there. My lower ten have become numb little marbles rolling around in cotton and leather. To say that I'm uncomfortable is an understatement. I feel like I've been waiting forever, and what makes the waiting worse is my mind's inability to be still.
Your house is a lot like the others in this neighborhood. Everything is earth-toned and stucco.
All of the yards are landscaped with desert rocks and plants. All the roofs are covered with
faded pink tiles. The only difference between your house and your neighbor's houses is the lack of exterior lighting at eleven thirty this evening. My butt is starting to numb. Slowly, my body parts seem to be falling away, one by one. I've started my own exclusive leper colony, and I'm waiting to see if you'll accept an invitation to join.
One of your two garage doors suddenly begins a slow ascent. Light is pouring down your driveway and into the street. A Lexus the color of pearls backs out of the garage. For a moment, as the brake lights flash in my direction, I wonder if the driver sees me.
What comes to mind is a red-eyed, fire breathing dragon from Japan.
What comes to mind is just how dangerous this all really is.
The white reverse lights disappear as the car is shifted into drive. Then the car, too, disappears after turning right further down the street. From where I am, there's only one way out of this development.
My heart is alive inside my chest now. With my extremities going numb, my mind has a diminished number of nerve signals to process. I have become alarmingly aware of the chambers of my heart circulating my blood, quickened by the sudden onset of adrenaline.
After the garage door has fully descended, and the Lexus dragon has departed, the solitary light fixture by your front door illuminates.
I loosen my grip on the blanket and turn the engine over. The air that blasts from the vents is cold, so I turn the fan speed down while the engine warms. I slide the transmission into Drive and coast down the street. Tentatively, I pull the knob for my headlights and surprise a jackrabbit perched in the middle of the pavement. It scampers into the darkness.
Your home is part of a newer housing development. Instead of having a house across your street, you have an eight foot stone wall followed by a few miles of desert. Nothing but dry clay, scrub and saguaro dot the landscape until it gives way to some formidable hills. It's not unusual to see wild animals in your neighborhood that have ventured from these hills in search of food.
I curse my squeaky brakes as I come to a stop in front of your house. At this point I feel completely exposed. I'm sure that everyone is peeking out from their plantation shutters, taking notes, taking pictures, taking video.
You open the front door, silhouetted briefly by the light in your entryway. It only takes you thirty seconds to lock the door behind you and let yourself into the passenger side of the Cherokee, but the moment stretches on forever. This is because I'm making a feeble mental effort to remember every detail. I'm struggling to commit every moment. To take the encoded information from my senses and hide it into a long forgotten corner of my mind, where it will be tucked away forever.
What comes to mind is a cardboard box full of treasures in the attic.
What comes to mind is a photo album full of pictures you don't remember posing for.
I draw a breath to say something, but I stop.
How did this happen? What brings us to this very moment? How could we possibly be sitting
here in my ancient four-by-four, grasping for more time when we've already stolen so much? Why invest any effort into creating something when it will suffer the same ill fate as a child's balloon?
What comes to mind is when the seesaw is finally abandoned. When the game that initially brings us such joy turns into a mundane routine of give and take. When we strive for something more, never knowing that, as we look at our own strange faces in strange photos, we will someday yearn for a time when things aren't so complicated.
What comes to mind is an image of pasting a band-aid over a band-aid over a band-aid.
I'm not talking to you right now. I feel bitter and sad. I feel like there is an emotional dam that will burst at any moment and will flood my mind with grief. The low green light from my dashboard paints the side of your face, and I trace your shape with my eyes, trying to burn the geometry into my gray matter. I hope I've sufficiently warmed the blanket as I drape it around your shoulders.
The clockwork of the world continues its slow grind. Our cells are duplicating and dying off, each copy losing color and clarity. Nature has been breaking us down since day one, and it will never stop, even in a moment as impossibly still as this one. We're looking at each other, speechless. You're drawing in the cold air of the Jeep, and your lungs are loading it will heat and moisture. (What is coming to mind is pretending to smoke cigarettes as a kid during the winter.) From your mouth and nose curl delicate tendrils of vapor.
Turning my attention back to the road, I shift into Drive and take the same route as the Lexus did to leave your development.
When I reach the exit of your development, I know that instead of turning right, toward the lights of the city, I'll turn left. I'll turn left as I always have. I'll take us out into the desert and we'll lay to rest this thing which we have made. One last time.
To be continued...
Afterthoughts: Or will it be continued? I've been struggling with this decision. My story of infidelity as you've read it is only half-realized.
The reoccurring theme as my story opens is the realization that nothing is permanent. We can do nothing to halt the deterioration of our lives. There are obviously a lot of references to the mindset of a child, and how an activity as basic as playing on a seesaw will become old hat once a young mind begins to be sullied by the world.
We are ruined by our own failure to stay content.
I was desperate to find a place to mention King Solomon in one of the "what comes to mind" moments. I think the inscription on the King's ring "This, too, shall pass" was a nice little all-encompassing (if not cliche) example. If you're not familiar with the story, you could whip out The Bible and discover that Solomon had a hard time being content with himself. He was full of sorrow when he was joyful, because he feared that it would not last. He was also full of sorrow when the joy abated, for fear that it would never return. This inner struggle parallels nicely with the struggle of our main character in "Cold Desert," but the story itself didn't warrant any kind of mention to the holy book.
And here's why:
There is nothing honorable in what our two lovers are doing while we follow them through their evening. If I wanted to post the second half of this story, as is, I would surely be breaking some of the rules and regulations that Google has set forth regarding explicit content. A mutual decision has to be made to end their affair, but not without one last heartbreaking night.
I think I may have kept you for too long as it is. The first part of the story can certainly stand alone. There's no shame in leaving the rest to one's imagination. It would be easy to have the story end with them driving off into the dark night knowing that what they have begun is going to end...but where is the real heartache? These two have found immense happiness in a different kind of relationship with each other. The second part of my story leaves one wondering if maybe the real dishonorable action is their farewell to one another.
If everything deteriorates, then what should we try to save, and why?
To be continued...
Afterthoughts: Or will it be continued? I've been struggling with this decision. My story of infidelity as you've read it is only half-realized.
The reoccurring theme as my story opens is the realization that nothing is permanent. We can do nothing to halt the deterioration of our lives. There are obviously a lot of references to the mindset of a child, and how an activity as basic as playing on a seesaw will become old hat once a young mind begins to be sullied by the world.
We are ruined by our own failure to stay content.
I was desperate to find a place to mention King Solomon in one of the "what comes to mind" moments. I think the inscription on the King's ring "This, too, shall pass" was a nice little all-encompassing (if not cliche) example. If you're not familiar with the story, you could whip out The Bible and discover that Solomon had a hard time being content with himself. He was full of sorrow when he was joyful, because he feared that it would not last. He was also full of sorrow when the joy abated, for fear that it would never return. This inner struggle parallels nicely with the struggle of our main character in "Cold Desert," but the story itself didn't warrant any kind of mention to the holy book.
And here's why:
There is nothing honorable in what our two lovers are doing while we follow them through their evening. If I wanted to post the second half of this story, as is, I would surely be breaking some of the rules and regulations that Google has set forth regarding explicit content. A mutual decision has to be made to end their affair, but not without one last heartbreaking night.
I think I may have kept you for too long as it is. The first part of the story can certainly stand alone. There's no shame in leaving the rest to one's imagination. It would be easy to have the story end with them driving off into the dark night knowing that what they have begun is going to end...but where is the real heartache? These two have found immense happiness in a different kind of relationship with each other. The second part of my story leaves one wondering if maybe the real dishonorable action is their farewell to one another.
If everything deteriorates, then what should we try to save, and why?
P.S.
If you click the 'play' button below, you can hear the song in its entirety.
