I do not know if I dreamed the turquoise, or if it dreamed me.

Slower than most, this Sunday has produced little other than a chance to rest and care for my sickly bride. She is making progress but it is slower than either of us would like.

She mostly sleeps, with brief periods watching television or scrolling instagram.

The day started late when her illness kept us awake again. I was early enough to join my friends for worship. Though a foul mood kept me from enjoying it fully. I found myself picking apart failures of those charged with making it meaningful. :–(

Even if it is true, I should look for the positives. The silver linings.

I think I needed sleep more than amens today.

I treated a visitor to lunch, which was hectic, it being Mother’s Day. I wasn’t much for conversation, but I was dutiful and performative enough I think to make them feel welcome. The rest of the party picked up my slack.

He and his wife drove in and gave us a public discourse on faith and loyalty. Good info, but I was hoping for more heart.

We must be patient with those learning to be effective speakers. Some, it will take a lifetime. And there was nothing wrong with his delivery per se. I was no doubt seeking inspiration more than edification.

I am acutely sensitive at the lack of those I can call friend today. In truth, I think it’s just a natural emotional ebb . My thoughts were wild last night leaving me restless until just before dawn.

I opened my phone to 10 or so tabs in my browser that I only vaguely recalled starting. A variety of research projects on turquoise and western towns and classic motorcycles.

I don’t know if I had a dream and then started researching or vice versa.

I dreamt about hunting turquoise with Paul Riser and Paul Rudd. Taking a communal shower— or not exactly communal, but a shared space that made me feel very uncomfortable. The showers were very short, requiring me to hunch down to get a solid dousing. I was having a lot of anxiety about it.

Eventually I meet a big Spanish family who run a restaurant. A beautiful woman wore a huge snaking turquoise necklace that had some kind of power to see through time or to travel through time.

I’m not sure what the Jungian explanation of this is. Some anxiety, no doubt. And possibly some desire for exploration or new?

I’m trying to write a short story based on it:

The Turquoise Trail

Chapter One: Dust in the Pipes

He rumbled into the forgotten place with his boots caked in the memory of three deserts and the taste of the southwest parching his lips. Parking his rattletrap like a tired steed. The old two-stroke held together with baling wire and wishes.

Dismounting Paul Rider snatched a beat-up duffle from the sidecar, hitched it and turned to find lodging. When he walked the bag rustled and jingled faintly—turquoise chips in a canvas pouch, the sound of hope and hunger.

The place didn’t have a name so much as a suggestion: Los Agotes, hand-painted on a crooked sign that swayed like it might blow away if the wind ever bothered to come through. A mining town once. Now, more heat and ghosts than gold and people

Paul had heard of the place from a man in a bar who’d lost two fingers and a tooth to a turquoise boulder he swore was alive. He said the mother vein ran somewhere near here, deep under the foothills, bleeding into riverbeds and old family heirlooms. There was a story about a necklace the size of a snake worn by the daughter of a woman who cooked like God’s own abuela.

He walked up main—more dust than road—and passed a string of worn brick facades with once-polished display windows now dusty and caked with grime. Who knows what they were in their glory, now half-closed tiendas and obscure offices. A single payphone, cracked receiver dangling like a dead limb. The town smelled of mesquite and oil and old, sun-baked wood.

The Miner’s Cave stood across the cracked and patched blacktop. Not much more than a long, corrugated shed with a faded sign and a busted screen door that shrieked in protest when Paul pushed through. Inside: bunk beds, sagging mattresses, a humming Coke machine from the ’90s, and a small office where a fat man slept with a fan pointed at his stomach.

Paul signed the ledger and got a key marked “Shower A.” He eyed it like it might bite him.

There was no joy as great in the world than a good hot shower after a long dirty ride. A ride that had worked the dust through his garb and into his bones. Paul swore he could feel grit in the synapses of his brain. Pushing open the door to the narrow tiled stalls and mildewed plastic curtains didn't give him the sense of relief he had hoped for. But it did instill a feeling he expected, disappointment.

The hiss of pipes was like a prayer blessing this holy communion of clean water and a dirty body. Paul wasn’t just washing away the road and grime, he was flushing out exhaustion.

In spite of the accommodations, being clean made life tolerable and practically enjoyable. He lay on his bunk, eyes on the ceiling, listening to someone cough through the wall and the occasional burst of static from an old TV down the hall. He held the pouch of turquoise close to his chest.

Tomorrow, he’d ask around. About the necklace. About the girl. About the Serpent’s Spine.

Tonight, he just wanted to be left alone with the sound of the crickets, the mysterious neighbors and the whisper of his own thoughts—fantasizing about that fabled river of turquoise.

-

I’m not sure where to take it. I think he’ll need the fair senorita and run afoul of a rival. Time travel could be fun.

Short stories are new territory.

For now, I think I need to get out of these 4 walls. I’m going stir.

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#essay #journal #shortstory #memoir

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