The Petrichor Gazette

Tombstone, 

 

It’s been six days since you left, seven since you kissed me. I stumble, now, through the Chihuahuan with little more than my horse and a half-empty bottle of vodka. It’s early October, but it feels like midsummer. The air is hot and edged with desperation, sweat drips in globs down my forehead, leaving trails of salt behind. My skin sizzles, only remedied by the teasing night air, and your memory is an albatross around my neck. I keep my eyes trained on the sand. I've hardly stopped to rest, and when I do, my dreams are filled with nausea and flickering memories that make exhaustion more favorable. I'm in a sinking, endless loop of heat and cacti, and the shrill cry of vultures that circle overhead penetrates my thoughts. I've taken to walking beside my horse, my fingers dug into her bridle to keep me upright. When I wipe my face, I can smell her hot breath on my hands. She’s thirsty, thick white spit pooling about her lips, eyes watery and bloodshot. Well, so am I. All I’ve got left is the vodka. I haven’t cried since I was a boy but I do tonight, the stillness of the desert seeding itself in m heart.

 

There is no other sound but the labored breathing of my horse and my choking sobs. Hot air wraps around me and I think of the Donner party and Jamestown and of cannibals and those who ate their horses in times past. I think of all the most gruesome things I am able, but I am selfish and cry only for you. I wanted to save it, the vodka. Forever, maybe. But the sun stole my choice and now I nurse at it like a greedy baby. I dream of the night we stole it. Me, you, a prostitute. She was perfectly lovely, smelled real soft and clean. I always find myself hanging on these details, on the scent of a woman, the slope of her breasts, these disembodied fragments of femininity. The perfect woman I’ll deem them, each of them, though their names always slip from my grasp. I still can recall the smell of her cheap perfume and pre-rolled cigarettes, the sour taste of her kiss. I can hear the jangle of your belt as it unbuckles, the carnal sounds of your moans. I can feel her fingers trailing softly down our chests in unison. I could almost imagine it wasn’t she who was touching me. We left early the next morning. Waking, still wrapped in each other's arms. We stole two bottles of some expensive Russian vodka and a dollar bill we found in her balled-up pantyhose. The first bottle was polished off in a day, but you made me promise to save the second. ‘For a special occasion,’ you said.