( This is another short story, a true one based on my life now as opposed to my life in the desert....enjoy)
Desert Days
To an eighteen-year-old, twenty-five hundred miles from home, with places to go and things to do life in the desert can be hell. To an over-pressured thirty-five year old, the slow pace of the desert seems like heaven. Seventeen years ago, I couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the land that surrounded me; now, I long for it.
Mill City Nevada consists of a few scattered mobile homes and the Mill City General Store. It is located in the heart of the West Humboldt Range, thirty miles from the nearest town. Nobody stays there long; they work, then move on. I spent eight months of my life there; it is an eight months I will never forget.
At the time, Mill City Nevada had a population of twenty-seven, twenty-four of which were Mexicans, fresh from the border, still speaking in their native tongue. With their long, charcoal black hair and curly, black moustaches, they resembled the banditos of western movies. Their breath reeked of whiskey and burritos. Although their looks were frightening, they were always ready to greet people with “Hola,” and a smile that exposed their yellowed teeth stained with tobacco.
The Mill City General Store was an oddity in itself. Its dilapidated exterior gave me the impression of a leftover prop from a ghost town movie shoot. The pay phone outside, dusty from the desert sand and often out of order, was the only connection to the rest of the world. Stepping inside the store, I always got the feeling of going back in time. The store had probably not changed much since Wild Bill rode the range. The smell of tobacco and spices was overpowering. The canned good, with their yellowed labels, had over-extended their shelf life by about ten years. They lined the splintery ledges along with a quarter of an inch of dust. Not a booming business, the store was kept open by the elderly couple who owned it simply because they had nothing better to do.
Anyone who has spent time in the desert will agree time doesn’t move slowly, but rather, “time is not.” For me, things were no different. I spent much of my spare time walking. My favorite place to walk was the nearby hot springs. During the mile and a half journey, the barrenness of the desert surrounded me. The sand, bleached white by the sun, was interrupted in spots by patches of sagebrush. The strong, bitter smell of sage filled my nostrils. The quietness of the desert was broken only by the sounds of my footsteps in the sand. Often, I would spook a jackrabbit from its hiding place in the sand. With its long ears raised, it would scurry for cover, a flash of gray in a world of white. The shack, that someone had erected with mismatched scraps of old wood around the hot springs, could not even hint to the pleasures that lay within. The strong smell of sulfur enticed me. Inside, I would take off my clothes revealing the bathing suit that I had worn underneath. I would step into the steaming waters, letting them cover me with their relaxing warmth. When I had my fill of basking in the soothing waters, I would hurriedly dress and begin the long walk back.
Dusk was my favorite time in the desert. I would watch the magnificent sunsets that turned the blue skies to orange and red. The flatness of the land gave the impression that the sun set on the earth itself. I found the cool breeze that blew across the sand to be a welcome relief to the one hundred and five-degree temperatures of the day. Nightfall came quickly, and in no time the temperature would drop to fifty degrees or below. I would sleep with my window open enjoying the quiet and coolness of the desert night. The occasional howl of a coyote the only thing disturbing my sleep.
My age, ambition, and restlessness at that time prevented me from fully appreciating the golden sunsets, slow pace, and rich beauty of the desert; I regret this. Now, seventeen years and twenty-five hundred miles away, I long for the place I left behind and every sunset I see takes me back to those desert days.
