I move quickly down the trail. My feet are light, flying. I feel the caffeine in my bloodstream, and the Grab N’ Go bags, which I stuck in a tote along with the army jacket, tap against my hip. It’s already hotter than yesterday. But inside my cactus will be cool and dark. I’ll eat a picnic breakfast there—share some Froot Loops with my father the child.
I notice new things on the trail: tiny white flowers dotting the brush; a long, dried-up streambed; a piney tree, which I stop to sniff (no scent); small holes in the ground—possible tunnels for some kind of desert rodent. I even spot a beavertail cactus: flatter than the one on the Internet and crystallized, somehow. It’s maybe dying. But a pretty death.
In my excitement, colors look brighter, so many shades of moss: honey gold, pistachio green, chartreuse. A bouquet of mustard-yellow flowers blooms up behind a rock. I try to pick the flowers to give to my father the child, but they fall apart in my hands.
I hunt for pretty stones instead. He can use them to decorate the turrets of his castle. I squat close to the ground, then go waddling down the trail in duck pose. I capture a pink pebble with silver flecks, a smooth, white stone (ostrich egg–esque), and a brickish shard. Each time I think I have enough I find another treasure: a terra-cotta fragment, a slate sparkler, a peach bauble. My tote gets heavier.
“Rocks,” I say. “I wish I could take all of you. But I cannot. So I will conduct a brief interview. Please state, in no more than fifteen words, why you are the one to be chosen.”
“Take me,” says a smoke-colored globe. “I may not be the shiniest or prettiest, but I’m sturdy and stable. Also, loyal. I’ll look out for you, unlike the more flamboyant stones who rely on their beauty.”
“That’s more than fifteen words,” I say. “But okay.”
I put the round rock in my tote. I imagine it smiling in there.
“Hi,” says a translucent, jewel-like rectangle. “Don’t I look like a sandcastle door?”
“You do,” I tell it. “You’re in.”
More rocks erupt in chorus. Everybody wants to be chosen. But I’ve reached the high point of the sandstone wall, and around the next corner should be the cactus.
“I’m sorry,” I say to the remaining rocks. “This is not a rejection! It’s not you, it’s me. I have to go see my cactus.”
Standing up, I dust myself off. I feel nervous. Turning the final corner is a slow, rugged unveiling—like approaching a longed-for oasis.
Then I see green. The arms sweeping skyward. My cactus is right where I left it. My thorny phenomenon.
I scramble in closer. It’s all there: the pulpy ridges, bald valleys, galaxies of spines. The cactus looks less schlumped over today than it did yesterday, but its injury seems to have worsened. At the very least, the wound has widened. Still, it’s a happy-looking wound. What was yesterday a slit like a sideways smile is now a gaping guffaw of laughter.
“Hello!” I call out. “Hello, my gourd-like friend!”
The cactus laughs in silence. Unlike the rocks, I have no voice for it.