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NOVEMBER 2009 |
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Arizona
In Arizona, the rocks are red. Everything in the desert looks vaguely red, as if the sun has burned it all. You
will learn the meaning of “dry heat,” and that 115 degrees is still hotter than what is reasonable for a human to
endure. Still, stand in the desert and understand why it is that people seek something spiritual here. The desert
will make you lonely, and hungry to fill the spaces inside yourself with some kind of epiphany. Visit the Grand
Canyon, which is nothing more than a gigantic hole in the ground, but it is a hole that everything in the world
could fit inside of. Stand near the edge and think that it is here, not at the shore of an ocean, where you are
closest to the edge of the universe. If you’d like, you can take a helicopter ride over and into the canyon. A
lot of tourists die this way, but they think it is safe, they think that they cannot die because they are on
vacation and everything on vacation is like an amusement park, a mere simulation of danger. It is not really
ironic that they die, because what they are doing is actually dangerous. If anything is ironic, it is their
belief in their safety. The views from the helicopter, though, will be breathtaking. If you make it back onto
solid ground, don’t forget to watch out for scorpions. They hide in the sand, waiting. Angi Becker Stevens’s stories can be found in recent or future issues of many print and online journals including Barrelhouse, The Collagist, PANK, SmokeLong Quarterly, Storyglossia, Necessary Fiction, Monkeybicycle online, Annalemma, Wigleaf, and more. She is currently working on a chapbook titled A Brief Tour Guide to Places I Have Never Been, from which “Arizona” is excerpted. |
