The sun burned the ground and my skin and the steel signs. It bleached all it touched, and the empty shells of buildings consisted of slender lumber that trembled in the wind like bones.
On the ground before me a snake shuddered, the only inhabitant of this lonely place where the wind soughed through the buildings.
In this place, we were as welcome as we were unwelcome.
I was standing on the very last stretch of Texas, but the buildings represented the style of New Mexico. The walls were between one and two feet thick, formed of clay, and as I stood on the threshold, a cold breeze drifted toward me.
I could not tell anything about the debris in the buildings. I guessed-a cigarette machine, a gambling device? I know a little about what dwells on the outskirts of society.
But whatever happened here I could not tell. Perhaps even fifty years was enough to remove all traces of recognition. What had once been a post office, and a laundromat, were piles of rubble fallen through vanished flooring.
Sometimes I dream about being forgotten too. I dream of languishing alone in a world where everything has faded and where everyone has forgotten me.
I don't mind, because there are stories I want to tell, but the rush of life sweeps through my mind, flushing out all of my stories and replacing them with problems and troubles and excitement and despair.
But for several days I have looked at my calendar hanging over my prep station, and stared back at the day when I was here, while I am prepping samples. I think about what is happening in Glenrio right now, and I know I can count on it being hot and windy and quiet. Maybe some cars are driving down the weed-infested highway, vacationers like me looking at the old building. Snakes are rustling in the grass. But there it is hot and quiet. If I were standing there I would be hearing myself think. I would remember myself again, and now I remember the remembering.