By Jaime Javier Rodriguez
Doña Luisa, the curandera with the best algorithms de maldades in Maqalén, or so it was said, squinted and twisted her lips to one side and looked as if a bad odor had suddenly filled her precisely kept oficina on the western outskirts of the city.
“Entonces, we have to face the possibility that what you have, mister Alvarado, is very, very serious,” she said to the young man. “A sin that maybe comes up very rarely. Something from the deep past, I mean, from all the signs so far. The limpia should have worked, even for a serious case. I even made you drink some cuacia to settle your stomach and clear the path for esos malos sueños to leave your body, but… como usted ve, it didn’t work.” She leaned back in her massive office chair that looked a little like a wooden throne when her tiny body sat in it. She crossed her dark brown arms, still plump and strong, across her round belly. They both sat for a moment in silence, he on the black sofa, she across from him. Somehow, he felt as if he had failed her, as if the limpia she had administered would have worked if he had just been a better person. But wasn’t he a good person? ¿Buena gente? Super successful? People often said so.
“I know, doña Luisa,” he said, sighing and shaking his head, “and I am sorry to keep coming back to you con estas necedades, but it’s been almost two months since I’ve been able to sleep. I need to find a cure, señora. These nightmares are going to put an end to me if I don’t.”
This was only his second consulta, actually. The first had been ten days ago when doña Luisa had performed a basic limpia (forty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents) for Edgar Alvarado, a young and rising executive with the Division of Water Control and Hydrological Allocation for the Maqalén Regional Water Council. He seemed like an excellent young man with a bright future, but he was having bad dreams, the kind of dreams that came all the way from the past, from before La Canícula. They were fairly common in Maqalén, these kinds of dreams, lots of people had nightly visitations of ghost and demons and haunting memories of the times before, when the planet hadn’t yet turned feverish to try to kill the virus of humanity on it surface, and since these maladies were immune to any kind of scientific intervention, doña Luisa was generally kept rather busy. Most cases of mal-sueño were treatable with an ordinary limpia or a special marijuana tea, or in more serious cases, a special incantation of the kind doña Luisa had performed on Edgar’s most recent visit. These had all failed in his case, and that now signaled to doña Luisa that the young, rising executive in her office was afflicted with something that she probably would not be able to resolve. Some sins were beyond forgiveness. Doña Luisa sat in her massive chair, looking like a small brown elf or a small brown demon, and she squinted at her client.
“We’ll conduct a deeper examination, señor Alvarado,” she said. “Are you prepared to deal with whatever we find? Could be serious.”
Edgar sighed, puffed out his cheeks, shook his head, gave a little groan of agony, and said, “It’s already serious, doña Luisa. I’m already dying. I mean, dying sooner than I should. I’m always tired. Started sleeping in my transport. So, whatever it takes, I have to do it. I have to find out who that pinche sonofabitch is that is always showing up.”
Doña Luisa squinted some more and nodded. “Yes, mister Alvarado. You are already dying.”
For the past two months, Edgar had been having dreams of la gente before La Canícula. In these dreams, the people were happy. They drove cars and ate fajitas outdoors and laughed and joked and drank diet drinks and beers. He could even smell the meat as it sizzled on the grills, and in some dreams they were actually eating goat, cabrito is what they used to call it. Sometimes, the men wore cowboy hats. They also shopped inside indoor malls. There was lots of shopping in these dreams. People bought clothes and shoes and waffle makers and coffee brewers and high definition televisions and electric toothbrushes, and they always smiled and squealed with delight as if opening presents at Christmas. Somehow, he always knew where he was in these dreams, in some small town in what used to be called the Rio Grande Valley in what used to be called Texas, back when the United States of America still existed. McAllen, before it became Maqalén, and Harlingen before it became Álincheh, and Brownsville before it became Bronesbíl. Sometimes he even dreamed he was inside a gasoline engine car surrounded by hundreds of cars and trucks, all moving and flowing like blood through an artery. In all of the dreams, every night, he saw the figure and face of a bald-headed man wearing an ordinary white shirt and a bright blue suit coat and pants, the kind of clothing people wore when they could still go outside in the daytime. He also had a red and green striped tie loose around his neck, and he was a little on the overweight side with a protruding paunch. He seemed ferociously happy, always smiling, always joining in whatever was happening in the dream. A recurring character, but someone Edgar could never recognize.
Nothing about these dreams was frightening or even mildly upsetting, and yet every time, Edgar would wake up in a cold sweat in the darkness of his cramped bedroom. Sometimes he would even find himself upon waking that he was also weeping and shivering for no reason he could understand. The dreams seemed to have no relation to his present or his past, nor could Edgar see how they could possibly be connected to his future, since there were no more cars, barbecues or shopping malls, nor were there likely to ever be again at these hot latitudes in the new climate. Also, he had no idea about the identity of the man in the blue suit and red and green tie. All Edgar knew was that the dreams were destroying his sleep. His work productivity had slipped 2.78 percent despite the drugs and meditations he had tried first, and the pleasant ocean hissing of a sleep inducer. The medical technicians finally had no other ideas, except to recommend a licensed curandera, and in Maqalén everyone knew that if you wanted the best, you needed to go see doña Luisa. Now it looked as if even doña Luisa’s formidable powers were not enough.
She had small greenish-gray eyes that looked like stones polished in a river, and when she aimed them with intensity, they seemed to glow and fire laser beams that burned through things, just like they were now burning through Edgar.
“What do you know of your antepasados, mister Alvarado? Do you know of anyone who might have done something really bad. Maybe somebody who made money in oil and gas? That’s a common one. I get lots of those. Maybe somebody who just didn’t believe that la Canícula would really come? Also very common. Somebody maybe who had some kind of connection to the meat industry? There are many possibilities. We just have to find out a little more about your past.”
“What more can I tell you, señora?” said Edgar, despondent. “I’ve told you all my own sins, and everything I can think of about my parents and grandparents.”
Doña Luisa closed her eyes for a long minute, then she opened them and nodded.
“Well, then it had to be something really bad from someone maybe related to your relations. If you want, I can undertake a full analysis of your aura. It will be a little more expensive.
“How much more?” asked Edgar, shifting uncomfortably in his chair.
Doña Luisa gave a tiny shrug. “I don’t know yet, but I have a payment plan, si es algo complicado. Most of my serious cases don’t go much above three hundred dólares. But the examination and treatment comes with a two-year guarantee and one year of free checkups.”
Edgar thought for a moment, and made his brow tighten up and his breathing became shallow for a moment. That was a lot of money, but if his productivity dropped another two or three points, he would probably be called in for an official review, and he could end up being sent for re-training or even dismissed from his position, which he had held for more than eight years, and he hated the training academies, and really had no other interests or passions or dreams other than working for Hydrological, and to make enough money to keep himself and his wife and kids fed and safe under the sunshields. He had his own transport, and he was even thinking about buying a quadcopter and maybe looking into buying a little beachfront property now that the oceans seemed to have stopped eating coastlines.
“I have other people waiting, mi’jo,” said doña Luisa. “Tell me what you want to do.”
“OK, está bien,” he said. “Whatever you have to do, I just need to sleep.”
Doña Luisa leaned forward and called up a holographic calendar that floated over her desk.
“You’re in luck. I have a cancellation. How about Tuesday, el veintitrés. How about a las cuatro de la tarde. Come prepared to stay into the night. These exams can take a while.”
“Sí señora, thank you,” said Edgar.
“Así estamos,” said doña Luisa. “You look like a nice young man. We’ll take care of this.”
On Tuesday, the twenty-third of the month, Edgar arrived at precisely 4 p.m., and was quickly escorted down a hall and into a large room with a plain, white-sheeted medical bed more or less in the center of the room. There were banks of equipment around it with small red and blue lights, some of them flashing, and some had small screens that would be indicating a range of information. On a wall shimmered a large holographic portrait of la Virgen de Guadalupe in freefall in space with the Earth in the background, and on the wall opposite was another holographic portrait of equal size of Tlaloc depicted as standing in an open field surrounded by mesquite trees. Edgar thought Tlaloc looked a little like someone he recognized from work. La Virgen’s holographic image emanated a bluish light while the one of Tlaloc gave off a primarily greenish glow.
Doña Luisa entered and said, without any other greeting, “Take off your clothes, mi’jo, except your calzones. We don’t need to see any of that. Did you have a bad dream last night?”
Edgar nodded. “A very bad one, doña Luisa. The people were buying houses.” He began to unzip and unbutton.
“Houses? Ay, diós,” she said. “Everybody owned a very big house back then. ¡Imagínate! They had no idea what they were doing. But, well, ya pasó. We have to live in the present. Get up on the bed with your head toward la Virgen there.”
Edgar, entirely naked except for his chones, did as instructed and tried to relax. Doña Luisa instructed one of her attendants to “make the necessary connections,” and soon Edgar had more than two dozen sensors attached to his chest, his neck, face, and an electrode cap fixed on his head. The attendant dimmed the lights while doña Luisa began working controls on the various diagnostic devices around the bed. From his prone position, Edgar could see Tlaloc, but not la Virgen, but a few moments later, he saw her holographic image come floating over him, rotating slowly as if she were in deep space, and her blue dress was flowing and billowing above her and her body now did a full pivot down so that her head came next to his. He could not avoid her eyes, gentle, brown, forgiving, but she did seem concerned. Meanwhile, Tlaloc had remained on his wall, but he had acquired a very long spear and he slowly lifted it as one would a javelin. He then reared back and flung the spear into a long flying arc. He looked directly at Edgar, who watched the spear as it slowed its climb in space over him, hovered, and then began a descent. The spear fell and appeared to impale itself in his chest, but it really hadn’t, except that Edgar felt a very real, though slight prick of pain in his heart, not a severe pain, and it passed quickly, but there had been no mistake about it.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing, mi’jo,” said doña Luisa. “We’re just getting started. Just close your eyes and maybe try to remember that dream of last night. That might help speed things up. What kind of houses?”
“Big houses,” said Edgar, “with sections of grass as decoration around them. Some of them had two levels, but most were just one level spread out. People were walking from empty room to empty room and opening water faucets to see if water ran through them.”
Doña Luisa shook her head and gave a glance at her two attendants to indicate that the case before them was truly serious.
“Well, we’re going to take care of all that,” she said, reassuringly, but Edgar detected her concern and caution because she paused in a particular way between saying the word to and the word take.
“And they would turn on the cooling and heating systems to test ….those,” Edgar felt himself getting drowsy. “And then…they would look at the walls and….and talk about making the kitchens….”
“Bigger,” said doña Luisa. “Yes, I’ve read about las cocinas back then. People wanted bigger kitchens. Kitchens were their own rooms. ¡Imagínate!”
Edgar was silent.
“Señor Alvarado? Are you awake?”
The machines whirred and beeped. La Virgen rotated back up in the cosmic ether, crossed her arms and shook her head, Tlaloc’s dark brown face gave everybody a wry grin, and he lifted his chin.
Edgar awoke in a comfortably warm room with a small window looking out toward the east, where the sun was already burning the land. Outside the window, the canvas dome-tents of several domicilios gleamed, their silver solar cell panels already following the morning sun. For a few moments, he did not know where he was nor who he was, and for a fraction of a second he felt terror as he remembered the day before. He felt he was very likely still in doña Luisa’s consultorio, a recovery room of some kind, but he was fully dressed again in the same clothes he had been wearing when he had arrived.
A young man entered carrying a breakfast tray.
“Buenos dias, mister Alvarado,” he said cheerily. “Just bringing you some breakfast. These migas have that new egg-product from GalluSyntecs. Complete genetic reformulation. This is the good stuff. The coffee is just so-so. Pretty shitty, actually. Sorry about that. How do you feel?”
“What happened? Where’s doña Luisa?”
“She wants you to eat first,” said the young man, who had a blinking networker implant over his right ear. He placed the tray on a small white table next to the bed. “After that, you’ll walk over to her office to get your results.”
“How long did I sleep?”
“Three days,” said the young man. “Do you feel resurrected? Get it? Three days?” He giggled, and said, “I always ask that. You need anything?”
No, Edgar didn’t need anything, and the youth with the blinking networker grafted over his ear smiled, burbled a few more pleasantries, and left. Edgar ate the migas and drank the coffee, and yes the eggs were really good, even if the tomate and tortillas were still subpar. The young man had been right about the coffee, which tasted like it had been brewed with dried leaves and gravel.
About ten minutes later, the youth returned and escorted him to doña Luisa’s office.
“Buenos dias, mister Alvarado, please sit down. I hope you liked the breakfast. It’s something we like to do for people who spend a few nights under examination.”
“Thank you, doña Luisa. So, can you help me?”
Doña Luisa ignored the question. She leaned over her desk and opened a binder in which was framed a portable networker. She held it up to her right retina to turn it on, and then she began scrolling and tapping through various reports.
“Mister Alvarado,” she said, “I’m afraid one of your ancestors was a real estate developer.”
Edgar looked at her, and then said, “So what? What’s so bad about that? You’re telling me I have these bad dreams because one of my ancestors was a real estate developer?”
Doña Luisa sighed, glanced again at her networker screen, and shook her head in sad despair.
“Not just any real estate developer,” she said, “This one owned land that had belonged to his own antepasados, and it had once been the home of a small group of native people before them. To put it simply, mister Alvarado, your ancestor sold off land of his own antepasados… for money.”
Edgar sighed and nodded, beginning to understand. “OK, OK. But you can take care of this, right? Now that you know, right?”
Doña Luisa scrolled the holo.
“There’s more, señor Alvarado. It is not good.”
Edgar sat and looked at her.
“It took us all night to get down to it,” she said, “but around three thirty this morning, we found it. Investigating the past through the neural echoes in our brains is always challenging, but I have a very good staff and the best equipment. We got a very clear vision. We saved it, of course, so you can see it for yourself. In this case, sale of the land itself is not the main problem. There is another element.”
“Another element?”
“Another element,” said doña Luisa.
“Well?”
“It was about three hundred and forty-seven acres north of what used to be a small town called Donna. All those towns are gone now, of course. Well, anyway, your own great-great grandfathers and great-great grandmothers lived on this land, and they were buried there near a small sanctuary that another of your great-great antepasados had built in nineteen thirty-seven. In fact, a lot of people were buried around that small family chapel. Some of them had their ashes scattered there.”
“A cemetery?”
“Así es, yes, señor Alvarado. That’s what we’re talking about. Your ancestor made a deal to sell a cemetery so that someone could put up a strip mall with…a ver…let me see…” She pulled up some new data on the networker. “…a dollar store, a chicken restaurant, a taqueria, a peluqueria… But that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing was the storage facility where people put things they owned but never used, or wanted, or even remembered. This was one was called Storage Surplus Management. Those storage places, always pretty serious. Lots of bad energy.”
“And this is why I have these dreams?”
“Yes, mister Alvarado. That is why you have the dreams. We see cases like yours maybe once or twice a year. The basic limpias don’t work in these situations, of course, the factors are really quite severe. Land that goes back to your Coahuiltecan ancestors, land that recorded pretty much your entire family history and that held the sacred remains until, well, until your ancestor put a storage facility over them, and walked away with a paycheck. No wonder you can’t sleep.”
Edgar crossed his arms.
“Who was this cabrón?”
“Se llamaba Filemón Arnulfo Covarrubias,” she said. “A cousin of a cousin of your third uncle, but close enough in relation to cause a problem for you now. Mister Covarrubias was of course very rich and very happy. He died forty-seven years ago in a hospital in Maqalén, but it was of course still called McAllen then. He was ninety-nine years old.”
“Did he know what he was doing?”
“Probably not. Very few did in those years. But that is irrelevant.”
“OK, so how are you going to cure me?”
Doña Luisa frowned at him. He noted the sharp glare in her eye.
“Mister Alvarado, I am very sorry, but your case es muy serio. You’re going to have to see don Anselmo, el Quemador, en Álincheh. I’m sure he can help you, but it might require a quemasón.”
“A what?”
“Or maybe you can do it with a jornada en el desierto, a Sendero del Sol, but almost no one survives those. A quemasón is when you burn everything you own, and start your life over. Difficult, pero usually effective.”
“What do you mean burn everything? What’s a jornada en el desierto, sendero of what?”
“It’s very standard. A very large fire where you put all your belongings, all your clothes, and all your furniture, and everything you own. It’s best if you do this on the land in question, but it’s not strictly necessary. And you will also have to give up your wife and kids. You have to give up everything. It’s a price some of us pay. I am sorry, but you are one of the unfortunate few who have these very severe mal-sueños.”
“Give up my wife and kids? My family, burn everything? What are you talking about? I’m an executive with Hydrological! I’m sorry, doña Luisa, but there is no way I’m doing that.”
“Bueno there’s the jornada entonces. Also called el Sendero del Sol. You go spend three or four years out in the desert. Walking around like Cabeza de Vaca en your calzones. Most people don’t survive. Most people choose a quemasón. Pero como digo, you should first go see don Anselmo and see what he says. Maybe he has some other tratamiento. I don’t think so, not for a storage center over a cemetery, mister Alvarado.” She shook her head and sighed. “A storage center,” she repeated. “Over a cemetery.”
“What if I refuse to do any of that?
“The dreams will get worse, and you will never sleep very well. Actually, you’ll get to a point where you won’t sleep at all. This kind of mal-sueño really will kill you. Mira, mi’jo, just go see don Anselmo before you decide on anything.”
Edgar thanked doña Luisa, paid her the outstanding balance, and went on his way, and endured the bad dreams for another month, and they did indeed become worse. His productivity suffered another drop, he was no longer able to perform sexually, and he began losing weight, enough so that clothes began to flap around him. One morning, as he wiped away the sweat and tears with his ration of bathing towelettes, he decided he would have to go see don Anselmo, el quemador.
Don Anselmo was a short, thin, scrawny old man with long gray hair tied in a ponytail that reached almost down to his waist. He lived under a simple, one-sheet solar tent in Álincheh. Edgar visited him one early afternoon, and the two men sat outside under a smaller, double-coated sunshield set up next to a dried stump of a tree. Three of four solar-powered fans were working, which kept them comfortable enough.
“I see, I see,” said don Anselmo after Edgar had explained the situation and after the viejito had reviewed the report from doña Luisa, which Edgar had forwarded to don Anselmo’s networker. The old man nodded, scratched his balls through his raggedy jeans, and rubbed his nose with the back of his hand in a way that left a trail of milky green mucus across it. This he wiped away casually on his jeans.
“Bueno, mira,” he said, with a note of resolution. “A case like this, I’m afraid you don’t have too many options, mister Alvarado. It’s going to be the fire or the desert. Either way, mi’jo, you will never be who you are now. That life you’re living right now will come to an end. But if you want to sleep again without that damn real estate developer in your dreams, live something like a regular life, well, it’s going to be una quemasón, or el sendero del sol. If you go out into the desert, you’ll have nothing but some calzones and a stick. Maybe a little bit of food and water, and maybe, OK, yes, a thermasuit, pero como quiera, yo pienso que you won’t survive. You are a little small and it doesn’t look like you are very strong. Also, you are not very strong mentally, according to doña Luisa’s report. No, mister Alvarado, you wouldn’t survive el sendero del sol. I charge two hundred and fifty dólares for a basic quemasón, but you look like buena gente, and I want to help you all I can. How about two hundred?”
Edgar said he would think about it, but he already knew what he was going to decide. It would be the quemasón, of course, because when it came down to it, he really was not a courageous man, nor was he all that committed to who he was, or had been, or might possibly be, in his present trajectory of life. He also knew that don Anselmo was right; he was a weak person, and the North Desert between Tejamérica and the Bexar Provinces were unforgiving, just as they had always been, going back to the times even before La Canícula when the region still had winters and it would rain without hurricanes.
So it was that the next day, he vid-linked with don Anselmo and made arrangements to have people come and gather up everything he owned and hauled away for the fire, and of course he also resigned from his job, sending short, but adequately explanatory messages to his supervisors and co-workers. Most difficult was saying good-bye to his wife and children. In fact, as they all sat later that night in their small sala, bare of most furniture, holding hands and weeping softly, it occurred to him that maybe it would have been worth the risk of death if he could have held on to his family. It was, however, too late by this point. Things had been set in motion, and that’s why they wept, because they knew that nothing could be done. Their husband and father, Edgar Alvarado, would come to an end, and the body in which he had lived would have to go on to some other life somewhere, all because some idiot pendejo ancestor had put up a storage facility on a family cemetery. This was the sin; and Edgar Alvarado’s previous life and identity would be the sacrifice.
A week later, a little before 9 p.m. and after a relatively cool summer day where the temperature had reached only 51.6 C, Edgar and don Anselmo met on a patch of desert ground where once, a century ago, had stood a ratty strip mall and a storage facility, of which nothing now remained. The area was covered with hard dry earth and the patchy scrubby vegetation able to withstand the lack of moisture and the extreme heat. Perhaps somewhere under all that, the bones of ancestors lay waiting to be returned to memories of honor. The sun was just about setting and so it was more or less safe for humans and other animals to walk the surface without thermasuits. Don Anselmo believed that a quemasón in the nighttime showed a proper level of respect for the sins of the past. Also, the very last step in the process would be Edgar’s disrobing, and it was safest to do that at night.
“Is everything there?” asked don Anselmo, pointing at the pile of clothes and furniture and objects, all arrayed rather neatly into a pyramidal shape on the barren land.
“Sí, don Anselmo. Everything’s in there. Everything.” said Edgar.
“We only do this once, mi’jo, so you better be sure you’re not holding anything back. Wedding ring?”
“Yes, my ring is there.”
“Photographs, computers? How about any currency cards?”
“Everything’s there,” said Edgar.
“¿Estás bien seguro?”
“Let’s just do it and get it over with.”
Don Anselmo checked his torch, which was in the shape of Quetzalcoatl with real fire from its open serpent jaws. He gave it a couple of blasts to make sure it was working, then he handed it to Edgar.
“OK,” said the old man. “A ver, dale. Let’er rip.”
Edgar took the torch and gave it a few short blasts. Flames shot from the mouth of the flying serpent god out to about three meters, a small lick of fire. He walked up the pile of his belongings and aimed the plumed serpent torch at it, and hesitated.
“Wait, wait,” he said, visions of his wife and children and his friends and the small moments of happiness that adorned his remarkably pleasant life. He looked up at the stars. No moon on that night, just stars, and because they were several kilometers away from the central city, Edgar could make out the vague glow of the Milky Way’s galactic center.
“Maybe I can make it, don Anselmo. Three years can go by quickly, and I can learn to survive. I can learn to find water. Out there. Maybe I can do it, if I just keep walking at night, dig a hole in the ground during the day and just sleep. Don’t some animals survive out there like that? Maybe I can do it, don Anselmo.”
Don Anselmo spat and a guttural sound of disgust.
“Mire, mister Alvarado, don’t be like all the rest. Everybody at first thinks they can survive La Canícula out there, but I give you no better than a five percent chance. That means a ninety-five percent chance that somebody finds your dry bones out there all white and crumbling. But, mire mi’jo, you have to decide. You can’t be going back and forth. We don’t have all night. This is it, señor. The fire, or the desert.”
Edgar looked at the pile of his things and up at the sky again.
“It’s not fair. No’stá bien. I’m a good person. I did everything right. I’m an assistant deputy secretary in the Division of Water Control and Hydrological Allocation with eight years seniority and a productivity rating of ninety-four point three percent. I shouldn’t be doing this. We should be finding people more closely related to that goddamn Covarrubias, and we should make them burn their things.”
Don Anselmo nodded and sighed and checked the networker on his wrist.
“Yes, assistant deputy secretary, ninety-four point three y todo eso. Mister Alvarado, no one gives a damn about any of that. Look, you want to end the dreams and sleep again, so you don’t go crazy and die? Then you have to light the fire, or go walk in the desert for three years. Don’t drag this out? I want to go home and sleep.”
The image of a blue-suited Covarrubias appeared to Edgar, smiling, laughing, in some bar surrounded by glittering red, green, and blue lights, and then he felt a kind of weariness he had never felt before, as if everything humanity had ever done had been for nothing, which meant that everything he had ever done meant even less than nothing, and he dropped to his knees and cradled the torch against his thighs. “It’s not fair,” he whispered. “I was doing everything right.”
Don Anselmo walked back to his truck and sat down on the rear tailgate and opened a small bottle of nutrient water, and smiled and gave a little flick of the head the way people do when something is confirmed, some universal truth underscored and validated. It wouldn’t be long now.
After a few minutes, Edgar stood up, walked to the pyramid of his belongings and valuables, and opened up a full blast from the Quetzalcoatl torch. A long spear of fire caught near the bottom of the pile. When the flames reached the accelerant core, which was after all don Anselmo’s specialty, the entire structure exploded into a towering bonfire, reaching up about twenty meters and forcing Edgar to take several steps back away from it.
“Everything, mi’jo,” said don Anselmo from his perch on his truck. “Remember how this works. It’s an important step.”
Edgar laid the torch on the ground and began disrobing. First the thermasuit, and then his leg liners and undershirt, the underwear, the double-layered, auto-cooling socks. The boots. The helmet.
Completely naked, he gathered the clothes in a bundle, approached the fire, and flung them in, and within seconds, these also were on fire.
“How do you feel?” asked don Anselmo with a slight chuckle. He took a sip of his nutrient water. “This is a real limpia, mi’jo. The kind that takes care of just about everything.”
“Betrayed,” said Edgar. “Those fools frying fajitas and driving pick-up trucks up and down all over the damn place.”
“We all feel that, mi’jo, but you get the prize, que no?”
“Why me?”
“Why you?!” don Anselmo laughed. “Because you’re you, buey! You’re the one with everything, the wife and kids and a nice little domicilio and a great job where everybody likes you and respects you, and who knows, maybe you were on your way to really great things here in Tejamérica. Sí, así es. You’re the sacrifice, mi’jo.”
“Still not fair.”
Don Anselmo nodded. “No, señor. It is not fair at all. But we can’t go back in time and fix things. Stop all those shopping malls and gasoline stations and all the cow-butchering. What’s done is done. All you gotta do now, mister Alvarado, is see if you can start over. Le deseo muy buena suerte. But right now, pues, I gotta pack up and go home.”
“And me?”
“Enjoy the fire,” said don Anselmo and waved at the flames with his near-empty bottle of water.
“It is not fair,” said Edgar, mesmerized by the flames. “I did nothing wrong.”
Don Anselmo shook his head. “Mi’jo, you’re going to need to get past that if you want to survive.”
Edgar stood naked looking at the flames as don Anselmo gathered his equipment and fuels, and his Quetzalcoatl torch. A short time later, he got in his transport and left.
Around five in the morning, the sun began to brighten in the east, and so Edgar knew he would have to leave, would have to find his way back under the safe shields of Tejamerica’s solar tents and underground buildings. He would not be able to return to Maqalén, but he looked eastward and thought, maybe he really could find a new life in Álincheh, and so it was to Álincheh that he went, and as he walked he began wondering how he would find shelter that morning before the sun’s heat killed him. After a few minutes of walking, he stopped, and gave a small laugh because for a second he could not remember his name. In time, he realized, Edgar Alvarado would be forgotten, but the man now walking toward Álinche might finally be able to sleep.
“Damn it to hell,” he mumbled, and, absolutely naked, began walking in the night toward the east.
Jaime Javier Rodríguez is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of North Texas, where he concentrates on Mexican American Literature and Science Fiction. He was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. This is his first published work of fiction.