Gods Aren't All Right

Discarded by generation after generation, the rusty cars piled up sky high. The morning was cold, the desert sun had barely lifted from its resting place beyond the mountains. The kid was sitting on the porch of the trailer, waiting for something to happen.

Maybe somebody would come along to buy some wreckage. That never happened.

Maybe the police would come to tell him about some criminal on the run, or to take his father in for drunk and disorderly the night before. The old man was sleeping in the trailer. No new bruises on his face, but who knows what he was up to the night before.

Maybe… But a cloud of dust rose on the horizon. A car coming in.

A shiny red Impala pulled up. The hand brake creaked loud. The door opened slowly. A fat man in a cowboy hat and shades scrambled out of it slowly. When he was finally on his own two legs, he was wheezing and puffing. He took a minute to catch his breath, dried his face with a tissue. Then he approached.

He stopped a few paces from the kid, mid-step.

”My God, Joe,” he said, “You haven’t aged a day. You goddamn injuns are like that, huh?”

The kid considered the situation for a bit. “You’re looking for my father."

"Ah, of course. Is he here?”

The kid considered a little more. The wind swept a tumbleweed across his field of vision. Would the stranger bring something new into this life?

Posted by: Paweł Kowaluk