heytherepumpkin:

“I hope it rains soon,” everyone says. The ground is dry and dusty and cracked. Your mouth is dry and dusty and cracked. You’ve forgotten the taste of water. The earth has not. You hope it rains soon.

At In N Out, you order animal style fries. They growl softly when you’re not looking at them. You suck at your chocolate milkshake and keep your eyes averted.

Everything is traffic. Everything is freeways. There is nothing but the cars surrounding yours in a too-close embrace, and your legs in cutoff shorts sweat-sticky on the scorching leather seat, and the venti vanilla soy latte extra shot light ice you ordered at a Starbucks hours and miles ago. You are going to die here. Maybe you already have. The only station you can find is Jack FM.

Someone mentions winter, and you laugh. Everyone knows there’s no such thing as winter. There’s just the sun, and the heat, and the eternal fire on the hills.

The room begins to sway. No one notices. You’re all so used to earthquakes. The floor splits open, and you plummet into the dark. No one notices. You’re all so used to earthquakes.

Celebrity sightings are common. You see Cary Grant buying avocados at Albertsons. You won’t be making guacamole tonight.

Strawberries are in season. The roadside stand is empty of people but full of crates. You eat dozens of the juicy, swollen, meaty berries. Your lips and hands are stained red for days. You can’t get them clean.

It’s the happiest place on earth. So why do you dream a faint refrain of “It’s a Small World” and wake cold and unsettled and achingly lonely?

The rains come, finally. Cars stop in the streets. People collapse to their knees. There is water falling from the sky. You weep, and weep, and pray that it will end soon.

You’re in the ocean, waves lapping at your calves. “There’s something touching my legs,” a nearby tourist says. “It’s just seaweed,” you say as you edge back towards the beach. Maybe if you reach the dry sand fast enough, they’ll take the tourist instead. 

At night, you hear screaming, thin and echoing. Despite the heat, you shut your window. It’s just the Santa Anas, you tell yourself, desperate to sleep. But you lie awake long into the night, listening.

The Armenians are angry at the Turks. They have invented a new holiday dedicated to being angry at the Turks. It is in the middle of a new month they have invented dedicated to being angry at the Turks.

The bus comes once an hour. The bus has not come, so the hour cannot pass. The sun and moon rise and set. The tides turn. The bus does not come. The hour does not pass. Forever, it will be 3 PM on Serj 19th.