The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2018

Stupid Californians Tania Pryputniewicz We drove through the desert without AC, counting birds—canyon wren, red-tailed hawk, boat tailed Grackle, no-special-kind-of-sparrow— to keep our mind off the heat. At the rest stop we mimicked the one armed saguaro in photos, bought frozen refrozen expired popsicles at the 76 station that had no restroom. Believed Dateland’s sign, that a date shake could taste good, amber bits of date flesh clotting our straws, vanilla ice-cream melting into wan sugar milk, sleep proving elusive at our destination in Winslow: La Posada Hotel where the wood paddles of our ceiling fan failed to cool us, mirror doubling the painting of a girl drying her hair in front of a campfire. 206 The Meadow