Beneath the Cannonball Tree

One - Julian

There's something about a sunrise in the desert. The raw orange light seeps into the sand, rolling in vast ripples on either side. The sky becomes this milky violet blue, streaked with light so bright it makes the dunes shimmer like seawater. The sun always rises super early too, when the air's still chilly, and you can see coyotes creeping back to their dens, black shadows bobbing on the sand. It heats up too quickly, though, like a heat exuding from the dunes. Even where I sit now, on a half-broken adirondack chair where the drying sheets rip in the dry wind, I can feel it heating up. It's always hot, and bright, and if it's not hot and bright it's hot and rainy, and the rain is warm.

 It hasn't rained in awhile, though. Not very good for the crops, but a couple days ago Lyle, Cillian, and Oliver tapped into the water pipes running a couple miles down the road, to a dingy town called Brigham, which is abandoned. They know 'cause they visited once. They took Calum and Dad with them, but not me. I haven't been allowed outside of perimeters in forever.

I shift in the seat, which creaks beneath me, and Armie shifts in the sand, stretched out like a mangy coyote, ears flapping as gnats orbit his head. Every once and awhile, when I dig in the cellophane wrapper to pull out crumbling graham crackers, his ears perk and his nose twitches. But already, he's lazy from the mounting heat.

 My eyes train on the horizon, shimmering in the rising sun, and the crooked, barbwire-topped fence cutting the encampment off from the spilling wasteland that is Deadface. The chainlink casts crooked checkered shadows on the red sand. When the wind kicks up, said sand gesticulates in wavelets, sometimes getting kicked up into the air where it reddens the sunlight.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...

With my eyes trained on the sunrise spilling between the links in the distance, my fingers tap out a steady rhythm on the armrest of the adirondack chair, a little knot of tension in my forehead loosening with each number. I synch each crunch of the crackers in my mouth with the thrumming of my fingertips, crumpling the now-empty wrapper in my opposite hand.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

My shoulders slump as I finish, and I close my other hand, rubbing the inside of my palm as I tilt my head back and watch the sky brighten. As the sun crests the horizon, the palest shade of azure leeks into my periphery, streaked with fingernail-like white clouds. Looking down, I find Armie gazing up at me with liquid brown eyes, vibrant pink tongue hanging out of his mouth as he pants audibly.

Leaning over the side of the chair, I flatten the empty cellophane wrapper and drop it. He secures it beneath one paw and starts to lick it happily, searching for remaining crumbs.

I lean down and scratch behind his floppy ears. "Good boy."

His tail swishes in the sand.

Looking back towards the faraway fence, I find Deadface still as barren as ever. Guess 'cause all the animals are burrowing away for another broiling day. This time, when I lean my head back, I close my eyes, exhaling in the quickly collecting humidity. Even in this quiet calmness, where the only sounds are the hanging bedsheets undulating in the breeze and the low groan of said breeze through the desert, my leg starts to bounce, the foot of my worn sneaker beating a dent in the sand.

I tilt my chin further towards the sun warming my skin and count in my head:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, with each leg bounce.

I split my eyes open. Through my semitransparent eyelashes, I can see vultures drifting in circles, in their impeccably ominous silence as always. As I watch them glide in lazy circles, I try to let myself sink into the silence - into the calmness - but the anxiety is always there, a tension that seeps into my chest that I can't escape.