"The Rainforest Messiah"

Published in World Wide Writers Magazine, UK, November, 2000
Published in Mysterical-E, January 2001
Voted one of the best five stories on Mysterical-E, 2000

Excerpt

Tumbleweeds skitter across the desert at random, like dust motes caught in a shaft of light. Zack swallows as he drives, but the air is so dry his tongue is coated with dust. The huge Texas sky hangs down on all sides of him like the flaps of a tent. When he was little, he felt tucked up and secure in tents, but this one is too vast, too relentless. His eyes hurt when he looks up.

He bears down on the gas. The Pontiac shudders, then shoots forward. Past uneven fence posts linked by barbed wire. Past an abandoned oil derrick rising out of the brush. He tries to shake it off, this unease, but it has already penetrated, like water seeping through a leaky roof.

A distant ribbon of grey detaches itself from the horizon. A few minutes later, it puckers into geometric shapes. He has reached the outskirts of Laredo. He cruises south past a cluster of ramshackle buildings. Colonias, they call them, inhabited by Mexicans who cross the border to work at menial jobs for less than minimum wage. Third-world shantytowns are more like it.

He slows and parks next to a cantina. A chalk-board with several letters missing announces cold beer inside. As he opens the door, a gust of cool air slaps him. He tries not to think of the old westerns where the bad guy swings through the saloon doors.

A radio blares out a tune by the Judds. On one side is the bar, a slab of splintered wood which will pierce his skin if he isn't careful. Folding chairs and card tables sit on an uneven floor. Except for a Budweiser sign, a dusty mirror, and a Texas map with Webb County outlined in black, the walls are bare.

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All content © Libby Fischer Hellmann.