The moon shone like a soft beacon on the warm midnight highway that
barely paused on its way out of Luminous, TX.
Everything was closed, from the gas station to the drug store and even the café, which didn’t have regular hours. Whether it was open depended on how Maria was feeling that day, what had been delivered and who came to work.
Shadows were sharp, revealing nothing within. Some surfaces glowed with a sort of promising fairy gleaming.
There were some four legged walkers on the road. Moon lovers. Coyotes, three, just like characters in an indie film. Silent. Sniffing about the sidewalks, all six lengthwise blocks of them, reading the surface news and on the lookout for anything of interest.
One of the first things in town when you enter is the Desert Rose motel, on the right side of the highway on a side street. There are large trees sheltering the 10 tiny units during the daytime. An owl waits there now, high and out of sight. Sharp, wide open pupils observe the pavement patiently.
Mice never learn, do they? Rats do.
If you walked over to the second street through town, you’d be in line with the few downtown houses in Luminous. In the six blocks there are about 30 houses, all occupied, but sleeping now. Nothing fancy. Desert houses, built to be as cool as possible considering their location.
There are dim lamp lights showing from some windows.
In the second block down, a woman steps outside to smoke a cigarette. It’s peaceful out here in the moonlight. The cool air and the dark and light were more wanted than the smoke was.
She is wearing a long sleeveless cotton night gown, white of course.
She runs her hands through her long hair in a timeless gesture. She leans back against the siding. Perhaps she will never go back inside. Stranger things have happened.
“Slow down,” Eliza thinks. “Your heart is beating too fast.” A Simon and Garfunkel song drifts through her memory and then fades again. She smokes, eyes closed now.
An entrancing scent of old fashioned roses drifts through the night time air. Eliza thought of heavy old pink roses like small roseate cabbages.
Now, the Walker came silently walking up 2nd Street as he often did around midnight.
He saw her little flame burn brightly and then go dim, as he had many times before. If he stood silently, the performance would be repeated a few times.
The Walker, the Heart Healer, stands singing under his breath, below the level of audible. If you could hear him, you would say that the words sound as if they belong to some desert tribe, and maybe they do?
Did he love her? Only the roses know.
He sang until she put out her cigarette in the ashtray that lived on her front porch and went inside, as he had before.
He walked over to the highway which barely paused on its way out of town and followed it. When he found the coyotes, he whistled a low note and they followed him, as usual.
Only the moon watched all four walkers leave Luminous, TX.
Everything was closed, from the gas station to the drug store and even the café, which didn’t have regular hours. Whether it was open depended on how Maria was feeling that day, what had been delivered and who came to work.
Shadows were sharp, revealing nothing within. Some surfaces glowed with a sort of promising fairy gleaming.
There were some four legged walkers on the road. Moon lovers. Coyotes, three, just like characters in an indie film. Silent. Sniffing about the sidewalks, all six lengthwise blocks of them, reading the surface news and on the lookout for anything of interest.
One of the first things in town when you enter is the Desert Rose motel, on the right side of the highway on a side street. There are large trees sheltering the 10 tiny units during the daytime. An owl waits there now, high and out of sight. Sharp, wide open pupils observe the pavement patiently.
Mice never learn, do they? Rats do.
If you walked over to the second street through town, you’d be in line with the few downtown houses in Luminous. In the six blocks there are about 30 houses, all occupied, but sleeping now. Nothing fancy. Desert houses, built to be as cool as possible considering their location.
There are dim lamp lights showing from some windows.
In the second block down, a woman steps outside to smoke a cigarette. It’s peaceful out here in the moonlight. The cool air and the dark and light were more wanted than the smoke was.
She is wearing a long sleeveless cotton night gown, white of course.
She runs her hands through her long hair in a timeless gesture. She leans back against the siding. Perhaps she will never go back inside. Stranger things have happened.
“Slow down,” Eliza thinks. “Your heart is beating too fast.” A Simon and Garfunkel song drifts through her memory and then fades again. She smokes, eyes closed now.
An entrancing scent of old fashioned roses drifts through the night time air. Eliza thought of heavy old pink roses like small roseate cabbages.
Now, the Walker came silently walking up 2nd Street as he often did around midnight.
He saw her little flame burn brightly and then go dim, as he had many times before. If he stood silently, the performance would be repeated a few times.
The Walker, the Heart Healer, stands singing under his breath, below the level of audible. If you could hear him, you would say that the words sound as if they belong to some desert tribe, and maybe they do?
Did he love her? Only the roses know.
He sang until she put out her cigarette in the ashtray that lived on her front porch and went inside, as he had before.
He walked over to the highway which barely paused on its way out of town and followed it. When he found the coyotes, he whistled a low note and they followed him, as usual.
Only the moon watched all four walkers leave Luminous, TX.
🌸
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