Elizabeth Jarvis

Return to Dust

I noticed it the first time I drove by, and then again, and again. I drove by it every day on my way to work because there was nothing else to see. It sat completely alone in the middle of a vast flat sea of gravel and desert scrub, and yet close enough so that I can see it leaning one knee, the rest of it slumping down in surrender and abandonment. It seemed to be calling to me, like a needy person holding a battered "need help" sign at an intersection in the city. I merely looked at it for many weeks as I drove by.