The Shade of the Joshua Tree

“Today’s different.” Roma smiled, staring out into the dawn, causing the two men to shuffle awake in an exaggerated groggy manner. “Today’s our day.” She said, beaming so wide the sun would have a fair contest when it rose to welcome the day officially. Towering, arguably the greatest moment in their journey stood against the intimidating and never-ending northeastern sky. What a tear-jerking sight it was after weeks of meandering through the Sonoran desert on the brink of death. How beautiful the metal scaffolding was against the starkness of the heavenly (though it had proved to have a taste of hell) blue expanse and orange dirt.

“What?” Christian grumbled. Zambezi lurked in his corner, the persistent coughing had sounded against the vast emptiness all throughout the hours of the night. Roma had learned to sleep through it, as she honestly needed the rest in order to survive. Sitting up, Christian’s mouth made a huge ‘O.’ “That’s what.” He whispered. He bore slight resemblance to the winds that ravaged the desert in the night hours.

Zambezi continued to cough, as Christian nervously turned to Roma for an answer of sorts. Roma’s guilt seemed to infiltrate her bloodstream, as she felt the effects all over her body. From the tips of her toes, from the hollowed out dimples that lay at the lower region of her skeletal back, the guilt streamlined through her being. It made her twice as sickly. “We should rest a day.” Roma suggested.

“We’re maybe a day and a half away from getting there.” Christian looked back to ogle at the tower.

Zambezi sighed. Not bothering to pick himself up to join the conversation. “If I stop, I’ll never start again.” He gravely confessed.

“Well, that settles things.” Christian announced.

Roma frowned, sitting on the thin sheet she used to protect herself from the coarseness of the rocks beneath. She fiddled with the fringe, rolling it between her fingers, trying to keep herself busy. Christian exhaled, flipping the switchblade of the metallic object open, wandering off into the distant sunrise for a cactus. Roma’s own throat ached, but she didn’t want to leave the figure that wore the impending cloak of death around his frail shoulders, shuddering in either pain or chills. Zambezi rolled over onto his back, staring up at the sky through the holes in the blanket they had strung between two cactuses and a bramble.

“Do you believe that there are aliens at… You know?” Roma tiptoed around this conversation before. Her curiosity was not quenched with the little that Zambezi spoke about the area.

Zambezi cleared his throat, or he simply coughed, Roma didn’t know or care at this point. The constant lull of a dehydration headache resonated behind the front of her skull, pounding at the walls of her mind. “All I saw were the people, Roma.”

“All of those people imprisoned because they were trying to expose the truth. They live in hell, Roma. There are children.” Zambezi felt salt stinging his eyes, but he was too thirsty to waste water on indulgent tears. Roma still sat focused on the horizon, how it ceased to exist at some point, it just wasn’t a defined place. She felt her parents vitality resembled that, the fact that it was there, just not able to see. “You’re parents are one of many.”

Roma sighed, the seas of confusion that existed in her imagination churned. There’s just something about this subject that makes her sick. It’s probably the fact she has lowered herself to a selfish personal agenda. In reality, she and Christian were no different. But this tiring life under the stresses of the constant running clouded her reason. She was no different than a lost little girl at the super market, crying at the end of the aisles. “I can’t tolerate the politics.” She said blankly, shifting sand with her foot aimlessly.

Zambezi grumbled something and turned back over on his other side. “Can you tolerate unbearable suffering?”

Roma stared at the back of her hands, studying them in their grimy glory. She’d changed out here. Hardened, she became a harder shell of the person she once was, what a beautiful person that was. What a beautiful soul to lose. “Your cause is endearing, but it’s selfish.” Zambezi’s voice cracked. He was more torn about Roma’s inherent ignorance than she was.

Silence continued to fill the lapse as Christian came back. There was determination in his eyes… That foolish hope Roma wanted to spit on.

Eventually, they packed up camp, leaving no trace of any life besides the thorns of the cactus standing against its desolate backdrop. Onwards into the desert they persevered, moving closer and closer to the radio tower. While they were silent, it was a circus within the precious minds of the three people. The human mind is a beautiful thing and a swift disaster all in one. But disasters are beautiful in their own right. Without disasters there would be no room for true happiness.

On their adventure, they ran across a plump man in a black jacket. He was sweating profusely with his jug of water half empty. Christian simply waved as they trudged past him.

“You do know America is that way?” The man spoke in flawed English, but it was clear enough to make his way in the country he sought out.

They all nodded their heads, moving onwards in their near trance state. The tower had enveloped them in some sort of enigma. It was rude, but the man couldn’t know why they were meandering through the desert away from the alleged ‘promised land.’ He’d know soon enough, though. Nearly every stop sign from Nevada to New Mexico had all of their faces plastered on a flyer. They were being hunted, and Roma knew there wasn’t an escape. Her remaining grains of common sense told her she was either going to die in this process, or she was going to end up imprisoned somewhere and completely forgotten.

But what was different? Either it was being imprisoned to their emotions and foolish altruistic hope, or it was imprisoned to the government. Roma sighed, staring up from the blandness on which she stood upon, and stared up into the stars. What could be up there that would cause the government to go to such lengths to keep it hidden? It had to be something powerful, it had to be something great, it just… It had to be something that Roma couldn’t wrap her mind around.

Tyler would know. Her heart quavered at the mere mental mention of the fallen man. Tyler didn’t deserve the death he had been given. Roma, as selfish as she realized this was, believed that she didn’t deserve to have Tyler taken from her. She was a selfish woman, someone out there for herself. She only had herself though, her parents were gone, and these people she’d been travelling with the past six months were proven to be entirely self-motivated and fickle.

“You think there’s a God up there?” Christian asked, lying on his stomach next to her. He seemed to be more fixated on the blinking red light atop of the tower that had moved incredibly close to them over the course of a day. “Sort of watching us, cheering us on?” Christian continued to theorize aloud.

Roma bit her swollen lips. How they ached for something that wasn’t a cactus. “I’d like to think so. I’d like to think struggles are a blessing in a way.” Roma chuckled.

“It’s about time we got a little break, huh?” Christian giggled, rolling over on his stomach. He now gazed into Roma’s eyes, as she was above him, perched upon a rock in similarity to a small rodent.

“You chose this life.” Roma sighed, craning her neck back upwards. The inky night sprawled across the expanse of the horizon. It wasn’t polluted with the lights of a huge city, as the town over the hill of the radio tower wasn’t a large populace, at least from what Roma could assume. The air is crisp around the bridge of her nose, nipping at the very tip of the facial feature.

“But still, there are only so many struggles I can endure before I break.” Christian emphasized, not raising his voice though, as that would heighten his thirst. “Before you break, before Zambezi breaks… Maybe we should… Stay low for a little while?” Christian suggested bleakly, but his hope shimmered boyishly in his irises.

Roma shook her head in disgust. There was no way she was giving up after she had come all this way. That was disgusting to her. Her parents would have never ‘stayed low’ and indulge in the meaningless simplistic matters of everyday life is she was in their place. They’d cross deserts, they’d move mountains, and they’d already have Roma back by now. “No. That’s selfish!”

“I want to feel like a human again.” Christian murmured. He maintained a glassy appearance that may have hinted he was about to shed a tear. “Roma, I want to be something more than a political statement. I’m not meant to be a warrior.”

Roma’s cheeks flushed with fury. “You think I was cut out to be a warrior? You think that I was brought up for this kind of life? None of us were!” She exclaimed. Her hands clutched the sides of her rock to keep from lashing out in similarity to a perturbed cat.

“We adapt, Christian, I’ve adapted.” Roma sniffled. “When the time comes, I’ll adapt back to normal life.” She gritted her teeth.

An expanse of silence passed between them, and for a while, Roma thought the man had dozed off into a slumber. She sat, perched alone with empty thoughts. A long time ago, Roma learned that if she thought too much about things, than that made everything worse. If she was going to be thrust into an uncomfortable lifestyle, she might as well be numb too. “If there is a God, I certainly haven’t thanked him enough for this beautiful life.” Christian spoke, his voice thin and weary like a lone whisper of the wind that blows across the widest valley in the middle of the night, whistling through the pines, kissing the curtains of open windows.

And of all of these things that sent shrills down Roma’s spine, nothing would top that statement. “I’m tired Roma. We’re just not… We’re just not made to work this hard for this long.” Christian sighed; it was a challenge for him to admit his weaknesses. Roma was enjoying every last crumb of it, not because she preferred to see him at a weak point, but because this was him uncensored. They were finally acting like humans, not ideas. There was not a need for a charismatic projection or an eloquent rebuttal to aide in one’s favor in a heated argument. There was no strategy. This was raw. Rawer than her sore soles that chaffed against every spot in her holey socks.

As Christian gritted his teeth, debating his own internal struggles between flesh and sainthood, Roma continued to gape at the stars.