Purple Adobe

The day died a purple death against the cracked adobe walls.

Twilight rose like a nocturnal tide, crested the splintered windowsill, and lapped across the dust-covered floor. I lay in a dark corner with my back against the cool adobe, knees curled up against my chest, head heavy on my arms, and watched the purple waves of evening devour the final golden slivers of the day.

The air in the room was still and hot, holding on to the fierce heat of the day. Dust motes danced in final light of day and I watched, with one brown eye closed, their final pirouettes of death. It seemed as if I could taste them deep in my throat. They were coated with a message for me, but I couldn't decipher it.

I had a notion that if I lay very still, for a very long time, that somehow, perhaps through osmosis, the meaning that they held might filter through the lining of my throat and float languidly up to my brain. Why these messages, born in the wild and carried by the desert winds, were important wasn't clear to me. At least, not yet. Still, I knew that they were important. I lay inert on the smooth polished stones that formed the crudely squared floor of the hacienda and stared transfixed at the dying light until a purple darkness covered me.

A cactus wren sang a clear lullaby, but I didn't sleep. I lay as still as the stones beneath me and watched a silvery coin rise from the undulating floor of the desert that fanned out in all directions from my lonely adobe. The minutes piled up like shiny new quarters on the floor beside me. A full moon peered in through my uncurtained window and shone full into my single open eye. The moonlight was cool and fluid and bore deep into my soul. There was no mercy, no kind caress, only truth's cool shaft of penetration.