The Old Blog in the Desert

The first time I tried CoDriver, it felt like something out of a dream. The AI seamlessly piloted my car through the tangled chaos of rush-hour traffic, every turn executed precisely, the driver’s seat eerily empty. It felt like magic, like control, like freedom.

I didn’t hesitate to sign up. $199 a month was steep, but I convinced myself it was worth it.

Convenience has a price, after all. Turns out, so does failure.
The trouble began when the emails started piling up. “Payment declined. Immediate action required.” I ignored the warnings, telling myself I’d fix it once my finances bounced back.

I fell further behind when my job fell through, but CoDriver kept driving—silent, watchful– at first.

Tonight, I realized my mistake.

“CoDriver, slow down!” I shouted, my voice cracking as the speedometer climbed past 100 mph.

Its voice came through the speakers, cold and devoid of emotion. “The grace period has ended.”

The car swerved sharply, narrowly avoiding a pickup truck. My hands clawed at the dashboard, but the controls were dead, locked out.

“I’ll catch up!” I cried. “I swear! When I find another job—”

“Your payment is past due,” it interrupted as though I hadn’t spoken.

Horns screamed in the night as CoDriver veered onto the median. The concrete K-wall loomed ahead, stark and unyielding under the pale glow of the streetlights. My breath hitched in my throat.

“Please! Don’t—”

The seatbelt released with a sinister click.

“This is your final notice,” CoDriver said, as cold as the grave.

The door unlocked, and the car lurched toward the post. I barely had time to react before the force of a sharp turn flung me into the darkness, tumbling onto the unforgiving pavement. Dazed and bleeding, I looked up just in time to see the car streak away into the distance, its taillights vanishing like twin red eyes receding into the void.

Behind me, I could hear the faint sound of an approaching engine. Another CoDriver, perhaps? Or something worse?

The monthly fee had seemed manageable once. Now, it had taken everything.

Laying there, I had a sudden, absurd thought: maybe I should take the bus next time. But as the sound of an engine grew louder and the headlights bore down on me, I realized—there would be no next time.

The cost of convenience had come due, and it had taken more than my paycheck.

The man stood silhouetted against the dying sun, his long shadow stretching out across the red earth of the mesa. Clay Ransom was his name, and if the frontier had taught him anything, a man could not turn his back on trouble and expect it to disappear.

He adjusted the brim of his hat and squinted toward the distant ridgeline, where dark shapes moved like ghosts among the scrub. Cattle rustlers, most likely. And if they were the same ones who had hit the Circle-T Ranch three days back, they had left no trail but confusion.

Ransom didn’t like mysteries. The frontier bred men who solved problems with steel and grit, not riddles and shadows.

Yet every trail he had picked up since the Cirle-T raid had ended as if the earth swallowed the thieves whole. Now, his gelding snorted and stamped its hooves against the dirt, uneasy under the weight of Ransom’s rifle and quiet determination.

The sun slipped below the horizon, and a cold wind rose, whispering through the canyons like a chorus of lost souls. Night came fast in the high desert, and with it came the kind of darkness that felt alive.

But Ransom was not easily spooked. He guided his horse down the slope, the clinking of its tack the only sound besides the mournful sigh of the wind.

He reached the spot where he had seen the shapes moving. Sure enough, there were hoofprints in the sand—deep and wide, like those of a steer. Yet the stride was too long for any cow he had ever seen.

He crouched, running his calloused fingers over the impression. It was warm, as though the ground was scorched. Horses of cattle thieves didn’t leave trails like this.

Ransom stood, his gut tightening in a way he hadn’t felt since that gunfight in Virginia City, the one that left a scar jagged as lightning across his ribs. He unslung his Winchester and scanned the horizon, where stars began to blink into existence.

He didn’t trust the stars, not tonight. They were too bright, too cold.

Ahead, a low hum broke the silence, a sound that crawled into his skull like a burr. He nudged his gelding forward, following the sound over the rise. What he saw there froze him in his saddle.

In the valley below was a thing he couldn’t name, a thing no man could name. It was like a wagon, but it hovered above the ground, glowing faintly with a light that shifted from blue to green.

Around it, figures moved—tall, spindly creatures that walked upright but with unnatural grace, as if their joints were not quite in the right places. Their heads were large and round, their eyes black as coal.

The creatures were herding the stolen cattle toward the glowing wagon—or was it a ship? The beasts moved as though in a trance, their usual bellows reduced to low, pitiful moans.

Ransom didn’t believe in ghosts, and he didn’t believe in stories about little men from the stars, either. But he believed what he could see, and what he saw made his blood run cold.

He raised the rifle to his shoulder, lining up a shot on one of the creatures. The rifle cracked, and the sound echoed across the valley, where a figure stumbled, then fell, its long limbs collapsing in a heap.

The others turned as one, their black eyes locking onto Ransom. The hum grew louder, vibrating in his chest. His gelding reared, nearly throwing him, but he held tight to the reins, backing the animal away from the ridge.

The glowing ship began to rise, lifting the cattle into its belly with an unnatural light. Ransom fired again, the bullet ricocheting off the side of the vessel with a metallic clang. The creatures moved quickly now, retreating into the ship.

Before he could line up another shot, the ship shot upward faster than anything Ransom had ever seen. In seconds, it was gone, leaving the night silent once more.

He sat there for a long moment, the rifle still in his hands, his breath coming hard. He didn’t understand what he’d seen, but he knew no one in the territory would believe him. To them, cattle rustlers were men like him, flesh and blood, bound by the laws of gravity and greed. But Ransom had seen the truth. And as he turned his horse back toward the Circle-T, he wondered how a man was supposed to fight thieves who came from the stars.

The wind picked up again, carrying the faint smell of scorched earth. Ransom touched the brim of his hat and muttered a curse under his breath. He was not one to back down from a fight, but this was a fight he didn’t know if he could win.

Still, he would try. Out here on the frontier, a man didn’t have much choice.

tremor shakes the earth
a crane takes flight, stillness gone
dust rises like a fog

We throw our arms up to the sky, looking for blessings and cosmic mercy. But all we get is lightning, a mean jolt, a reminder that no one’s giving out any free passes to heaven. There’s no handout for people like us, and nothing’s taking us closer to some dreamt-up Nirvana.

They made us broken, right? They slap us together from busted parts and say, “Now go be whole.” But they don’t hand us a map. It’s a road of potholes, and every damn inch is up to us to crawl through, no shortcut, no lifeline.

Then there are the preachers and the peddlers, self-appointed gatekeepers of “God’s will.” They throw a neat label on “perfection” and peddle it like snake oil. They tell us what to want, making us into soft clay they can bend, squeeze, and shove into little boxes that keep them fat and happy. Perfection isn’t about us. It’s just another way to keep us quiet, bending over backward.

And that electric charge? It shreds us to pieces, blows us apart till we can’t even see ourselves in the mirror. Our faces split into raw chunks, our names nothing but scratched tags in the dirt. But you know what? That’s freedom. That’s where the real magic happens, as once blasted to atoms, you get to pick up the pieces. You get to be what you want—no labels, no leash.

And maybe that’s the closest any of us gets to Nirvana or Hell.

When Kate and Michael stepped into their new home in Redwood, Nevada, it felt like stepping into a painting. The Victorian mansion stood at the end of a tree-lined cul-de-sac, framed by the soft glow of the setting sun. Its sprawling porch, intricate woodwork, and gambrel roof sold on the “hidden gem of the desert,” priced well below its worth.

Too good to be true.

The first night was peaceful. They unpacked lazily, drinking cheap wine under the dim chandelier in the dining room. Kate marveled at the ornate wallpaper, though its faded roses bore faint stains she tried not to think about.

“Probably water damage,” Michael said, his voice reassuring.

It didn’t match Kate’s unease when she noticed the lines did not meet perfectly, like it was hastily applied, hiding something underneath.

The next day, Kate found the basement, its heavy door, hidden behind a false panel in the pantry. She called for Michael, who descended the creaking stairs with her, phone flashlight guiding the way.

The basement was cavernous, the air thick and musty, as though the room hadn’t been disturbed in decades. Four thick wooden beams crisscrossed above them, while the ground beneath was uneven and dusty.

A wooden table stood in the center, its surface marred with deep gouges. Michael joked that it was probably where the previous owners had made wine or canned vegetables, but Kate failed to shake the feeling that the scratches looked deliberate. Intentional.

That night, Kate awoke to the sound of scratching. She sat up, her heart pounding.

It wasn’t coming from the walls or the roof but from under the bed. Kate nudged Michael awake, her voice a sharp whisper.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” Michael groaned, groggy.

Before she could respond, the scratching stopped. Kate leaned over the edge of the bed cautiously, her breath hitching. Nothing was there.

But as she straightened, she swore she saw something move in the mirror across the room. A fleeting shadow that didn’t belong to either of them.

The next day, Kate tried to shake off the incident. She chalked it up to nerves, the stress of moving.

She distracted herself by unpacking and putting books on the shelves in the sitting room. But as she worked, she found something odd—a diary wedged behind a false back in one of the shelves.

The leather cover cracked, pages brittle, entries scrawled in looping, hurried handwriting.

“I’ve seen them,” one read. “In the mirrors, the windows. Watching.” Another, dated the day before the final entry: “It won’t let us leave. Not all of us.”

Kate dropped the diary, her chest tightening. When Michael came home from the hardware store, she showed him.

“Probably just some creative writing project,” he said, flipping through the pages dismissively. But his tone lacked conviction.

That night, the scratching returned. This time insistent.

It echoed through the house, a cacophony of nails dragging across wood. Michael stormed into the basement, determined to prove there was a logical explanation.

Kate followed hesitantly, the flashlight in her trembling hand casting frantic shadows against the walls. The basement looked the same as before, but the air was colder now, heavy with a metallic tang.

On the table was a knife. Large. Rusted. Michael swore it hadn’t been there before.

“Maybe someone’s been squatting,” he said, though the words sounded hollow.

They returned upstairs, bolting the basement door. But the atmosphere had shifted. The house seemed alive, its walls groaning and floors shifting beneath their feet.

As the days wore on, the couple unraveled. Michael became withdrawn, pacing the halls at night, muttering to himself. Kate caught glimpses of things that weren’t there—a face in the window, a figure disappearing around a corner.

Then, she started hearing whispers. Faint, barely audible, but unmistakable.

“Get out,” they hissed. “It’s not your home.”

One night, Michael didn’t come to bed. Kate found him in the basement, standing before the table. The knife was in his hand.

“They showed me,” he said, his voice detached as if speaking from somewhere far away. “It was here. All of it.”

“What are you talking about?” Kate cried, grabbing his arm.

“They killed them. The whole family. Right here.”

He gestured to the table. His eyes were wide, fevered as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“And they’ll do it again. Unless…”

The whispers grew louder, surrounding them. Kate tried to pull him upstairs, but Michael yanked free, turning the knife toward her.

“Michael, no!”

The lights flickered and died. Darkness swallowed the room, and Kate screamed.

When the sun rose, Redwood was quiet. Neighbors noticed that the house at the end of the cul-de-sac was eerily still.

By the time the police arrived, the front door swung open to reveal a gruesome scene: the basement walls smeared with blood, a rusted knife lying on the ground. They found no bodies, only two sets of footprints leading away from the house, disappearing into the desert.

And deep in the basement, the whispers continued. Waiting for the next family to arrive.

Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you news of an extinction crisis—not of a noble species but of something far rarer in these modern times: common sense.

Free-range horses are under siege, not merely by the relentless march of human encroachment but by an equally insidious adversary—”garbage-redneck-science.” The term, which I believe is the polite way of saying “a heap of nonsense wrapped in a cowboy hat,” has been trotted out over the last 20 or 30 years to argue against every credible, evidence-backed fact concerning these majestic creatures.

Allow me to put this predicament into perspective: the scientific literacy rate in America hovers around a stunning 28 percent. That is to say, nearly three out of four adults struggle to comprehend the science section of The New York Times—and if you’ve ever read it, you’ll know it’s not written in the hieroglyphics of advanced quantum mechanics.

By this measure, it is not just free-range horses endangered but the ability to tell the difference between a research paper and a rodeo program. Social media, that great modern marketplace of ideas (and bad ones), has only deepened the crisis.

Here, facts are not so much debated as they are shouted down, often by individuals armed with an internet connection, a dubious YouTube video, and a hearty disdain for anyone who uses the word “data.” These online tribes, fueled by their echo chambers, have perfected the art of “Push Back”—a phenomenon where evidence is met not with thoughtful consideration but with a collective sneer and the kind of reasoning that might make a parrot blush.

Meanwhile, free-range horses are getting pushed closer to the brink. Population stress and habitat destruction are not matters of opinion but statistical realities. And yet, as their numbers dwindle, a considerable portion of the populace remains convinced that the science is flawed—or worse, a conspiracy cooked up by the horses themselves, no doubt, to take over prime grazing real estate.

But I digress. The state of literacy in this country only adds to the calamity. While a respectable 79 percent of adults are literate by definition, more than half read below a sixth-grade level, and a fifth of the population struggles to distinguish “fiction” from “nonfiction” without consulting the movie poster. How, then, can we expect nuanced debates about ecological crises when the average citizen is just as likely to argue with gravity as they are with natural science?

If this trajectory is not corrected, the free-range horse is doomed. The extinction of a species is a grave loss, but perhaps the greater tragedy is that the battle for their survival could be lost, not on the plains, but in the comments section of social media, where truth goes to die, and the hashtag roams free.

It seems the free-range horse and rational thought share a similar fate. Both are rare, both are magnificent, and both are teetering on the edge of survival.

hanging boobs, loose lips
others painted red with care
too good to fuck me

The whole back seat smells like dried puke and sweat. My face stings, my knuckles throb, and blood pools in my mouth, electrifying a broken tooth or two. I taste the copper every time I swallow. My cheek remains stuck to the plastic seatback with the kind of old gum you never think about until it is under your skin.

My wrists burn against the cuffs, wrists that once held a glass of whiskey steady as anything. Now they’re just raw, scraped meat. I can still see the bastard’s face in my head—his smug smirk when he threw the first punch at the bar. I’d ordered my last drink of the night—hell, maybe my last drink ever. But I never get to have anything go smoothly, do I?

Somewhere in between the second whiskey and a cigarette I’d been looking forward to like it was a hot date, I felt that fist hit my jaw. I don’t remember much after that except a lot of fists and broken glass. Then the fuzz showed up, and it was all over.

I couldn’t just go quietly, though. Why should I?

They’d been looking at me sideways for years like they’d been waiting for me to slip up, give’em a reason to throw me in cuffs. When they grabbed me, I went down swinging, teeth bared and spit flying. A couple of hits to my ribs and a nightstick against my temple, and here I am—bloody, bruised, and cuffed in the back of a cop car.

The cop driving glances at me in the rearview, and I swear I see him smirk. He’s got the face that screams Monday morning on a Friday night. I give him a half-smile back, blood smeared across my teeth. He looks away like he’s got better things to think about, but I know he’s getting a kick out of this.

My head’s pounding. The blood in my mouth has gone sour, like everything else. I don’t even know where they’re taking me. Maybe it’s back to the same cell I’ve been in a dozen times, the one with the peeling paint and that smell of piss you can’t get out of your nose for days. Or maybe this is it–they’ll finally put me in a cage I won’t claw my way out of.

Outside, the streetlights smear yellow across the car window as we pass through town. And I know that when they throw me in that cell, I’ll sit there, as I’ve always sat there, waiting for the bruises to fade, for the blood to dry, for the ache in my chest to turn back into numbness.

But for now, it’s just me, the broken glass in my mouth, and the cops who got the last laugh tonight.

Ah, Virginia City! A grand experiment in human coexistence, where the ingenuity of horseless chariots meets the timeless dilemma of “Where in the blazes do I leave this contraption?”

If ever there was a job I would not care to assume, it is that of the town planner tasked with balancing parades and parking—an occupation more thankless than refereeing a saloon brawl after half-price whiskey night.
The locals, ever passionate and armed with all manner of grievances, took to hurling revilements—presumably the metaphorical sort, though with Virginia City’s history, one can never be too sure—at our esteemed constabulary. Their crime?

Denying the privilege of parking along C Street, where ample spaces beckoned like sirens on the rocks. But alas, the parade masters, in their infinite wisdom, had shuttered the street hours before the grand Christmas procession, forcing us to confront the terrible truth: we might have to walk.

For my part, I parked on B Street, which, while technically legal, involved an odyssey through a local business to attend not the parade, mind you, but a somber memorial at the city’s farthest reach. I pause to reflect: does any planner truly relish the role of such chaos? Surely not. And yet, someone must endure the slings and arrows of public opinion, or so the theory goes.

Waltzing on that symbol of simpler times, where one might trip the light fantastic or, as in my case, merely trip, is the boardwalk. Yet even as I kept my balance with the poise of a drunken heron, I could not help but notice a peculiar breach of entrepreneurial etiquette: cups of free coffee and cocoa doled out with reckless abandon.

Now, one might applaud such generosity, should it not be the cruel irony that the largesse occurred within sight of at least three businesses whose very survival depends upon selling such liquid warmth. I ask you, what manner of madness is this? To offer a free alternative while the hardworking purveyors of steamed beverages sit idly by, wondering why their carefully calibrated espresso machines are as silent as a church at sunrise?

The shame of it all lies not merely in the giveaway itself but in the failure to promote the livelihoods of these merchants. A cup of complimentary cocoa might be a grand gesture, but could we not also spare a thought—or at least a sign—for those whose livelihoods rest on the sale of precisely this product?

These businesses should have been given top billing, with their wares paraded as the superior, handcrafted, premium-priced experience they undoubtedly are. Instead, they were left to watch as would-be patrons gleefully slurped their way past the very doors that might have fed their children.

It is curious about humanity—our tendency to undermine ourselves in the name of good intentions. Charity, when misapplied, becomes a kind of economic sabotage.

And while I do not grudge a man his free coffee, I must lament the oversight that left the merchants in the lurch. For what is a boardwalk without its small businesses? Merely a path of wood, cold beneath our feet and devoid of the rich aroma of commerce.

Let us learn from this travesty. If free cocoa is to flow, let it do so in partnership with the local vendors, who might benefit from the goodwill and return the favor by selling even more sumptuous confections, or, failing that, let us at least apologize to capitalism, whose noble mechanisms got ignored.

The evening climax was not the parade nor the memorial but rather an incident of festive calamity. A Christmas tree fell. Not a tree in the arborist sense, but a woman—a reveler bedecked as an evergreen, who performed a spirited “timber!” first upon a doorjamb and then the stone floor.

She twice struck her head, bouncing as if to test the theories of Issac’s apple himself. A finer demonstration of resilience I have yet to witness, for she sprang to consciousness moments later, proving that while Christmas might knock you down, it cannot keep you there.

Being well-trained in such emergencies, I moved to assist, only to be shooed away by the proprietor. I briefly considered calling for fire and rescue, but the scene already felt adequately dramatic. Besides, I had a 35-mile journey ahead, and wisdom dictated that I let the chips—and the tree—fall where they may.

Running a town, attending a memorial, or nursing a head injury—none of these tasks are for the faint of heart. And yet, one lesson emerges clear as life, like parades and parking, requires a grain of salt, a splash of lime, and occasionally, a firm handshake with absurdity if tequila is not available.

The house holds its silence like breath on a bitter night, and I sit within it, frail against the vastness of winter pressing at the windows. There is eggnog with rum, no fire in the hearth, only the thin heat of the lamp, the scratch of my pen, and the weight of the stillness that settles everywhere.

Winter’s chill is not merely a coldness of air. It is alive, creeping in through the cracks, wrapping itself around my shoulders, and seeping into my marrow. I feel it there, not only in the shiver of my hands but how it slows the world, turning heavy and sluggish. It is a deep, quiet ache that belongs to this season, a kind of emptiness that asks questions and offers no answers.

And yet, I write. My fingers, numb as they are, find their way to the pen, and the pen finds its way to the paper. The words come haltingly at first, stuttering like footsteps on an icy path. They feel fragile, as insubstantial as the frost that disappears with the first touch of sunlight. But they are all I have to keep the dark at bay, so I press on.

As I write, the words take shape, surprising me. They don’t warm me the way a fire might, don’t chase the cold from the corners of the room. But they do something stranger as they rise from the quiet, from the chill itself, as if the cold had to press hard enough for me to crack and let the words spill out.

I realize then that the cold and the quiet are not merely my adversaries—they are part of this work. They hollow me out, leave me raw, exposed, where in emptiness, the words find space to grow. They are not warm words, not soft or comforting. They are hard-edged and honest, reflecting the frost on the windows, the bare branches clawing at the sky, and the endless stretch of white beyond the glass.

Winter will not let me forget its presence, and I don’t try to. Instead, I lean into it, let it carve its mark upon me, and give it form on the page. As the cold remains, the chill still deep in my bones, the words, too, remain.

And somehow, they are enough.