An Intersection in the Middle of Nowhere

US285 and TX FM 1776 cross in the middle of the desert. The only sign of civilization within sight of the road is an idle pump jack.

From a distance the brown of the grass is distinguishable from the brown of the rocky soil below by a yellowish tint and the movement made by the hot wind. The taller mesquite and sagebrush bushes make a thin layer of green, a pale imitation of years past. The lower bushes are crumbly brown where they haven’t been burnt away in the slashing pockets of a grass fire.

A dust devil points a crooked finger high into the sky as if it wants to snatch a hawk from the air. But there is no hawk today. The flat road shimmers and undulates, the mirage shaken up into splashes by the waves of heat off the pavement.

I see no sign of the tarantulas that covered the pavement a few summers ago. Today there is no thunderstorm rolling across the ridges to make gullywashers in the erstwhile arroyos, to drive to the roadbed the desert spiders, safer from the flash flood even if more vulnerable to the odd car tire.

On the next rise, the green of a heavily irrigated alfalfa field jumps out of nowhere, surpising me with its garish obscenity against the landscape drowning in dryness.