Signs Preceding the End of the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

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THE OBSIDIAN MOUND

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    When she reached the top of the saddle between the two mountains it began to snow. Makina had never seen snow before and the first thing that struck her as she stopped to watch the weightless crystals raining down was that something was burning. One came to perch on her eyelashes; it looked like a stack of crosses or the map of a palace, a solid and intricate marvel at any rate, and when it dissolved a few seconds later she wondered how it was that some things in the world—some countries, some people—could seem eternal when everything was actually like that miniature ice palace: one-of-a-kind, precious, fragile. She felt a sudden stab of disappointment but also a slight subsiding of the fear that had been building since she’d versed from home.
    On the other side of the mountains was the truck Chucho had told her about. She went up to it, opened the passenger door and said Are you Aitch’s man? The driver jumped out of his skin then tried to recover his hard-boiled slouch, upped his nose as if to say S’right, and finally jerked his head to signal Get in.
    On the way the driver turned to look at her every little while, as though hoping she’d try to talk to him so he could refuse, but Makina had no interest in the challenge; she should have been exhausted but what she felt was an overwhelming impatience. She turned to the window to look out without seeing. If she didn’t get back soon, what would become of all those people who had no way of communicating with their kith and kin? She had to get back, because Cora was counting on her; and what about the switchboard, how would it look and feel without her? Ay, the guilt, reducing reality to a clenched fist with set hours.
    The city was an edgy arrangement of cement particles and yellow paint. Signs prohibiting things thronged the streets, leading citizens to see themselves as ever protected, safe, friendly, innocent, proud, and intermittently bewildered, blithe, and buoyant; salt of the only earth worth knowing. They flourished in supermarkets, cornucopias where you could have more than everyone else or something different or a newer brand or a loaf of bread a little bigger than everyone else’s. Makina just dented cans and sniffed bottles and thought it best to verse, and it was when she saw the anglogaggle at the self-checkouts that she noticed how miserable they looked in front of those little digital screens, and the way they nearly-nearly jumped every time the machine went bleep! at each item. And how on versing out to the street they sought to make amends for their momentary one-up by becoming wooden again so as not to offend anyone.
    Out on the concrete and steel-girder plain, though, she sensed another presence straight off, scattered about like bolts fallen from a window: on street corners, on scaffolding, on sidewalks; fleeting looks of recognition quickly concealed and then evasive. These were her compatriots, her homegrown, armed with work: builders, florists, loaders, drivers; playing it sly so as not to let on to any shared objective, and instead just, just, just: just there to take orders. They were the same as back home but with less whistling, and no begging.
    She was seduced by something less clear-cut as she wandered by the restaurants: unfamiliar sweetness and spiciness, concoctions that had never before passed her lips or her nose, rapturous fried feasts. Places serving food that was strange but with something familiar mixed in, something recognizable in the way the dishes were finished off. So she visited the restaurants, too, with the brevity imposed by glaring managers who guessed She’s not here to eat, and it wasn’t until the fourth restaurant that she realized they were here, too, more armed than anyplace else, cooks and helpers and dishwashers, ruling the food at the farthest outposts.
    All cooking is Mexican cooking, she said to herself. And then she said Ha. It wasn’t true, but she liked