Monday, January 24, 2011

Southern California Short Story

He read Candide, and laughed. People stared at him in the library. It was 10 AM. After having this, he walked to Pavilions and bought an expensive coffee, from a detoxed blond, and spilled it on the floor of his car. He drove through the shade of many palm trees. He drove past 3 tall modern buildings, in the restrained style of Miles van der Rohe, the color of bone.

A Spanish pirate was buried where he parked his car, near Back Bay. The dead man's name was José de Gálvez. He had been shot by an arrow in the thigh, and had bled to death. Up on the bluff, under a house foundation, was the remains of a cache of silver on the edge of an Indian burial ground. The ghost of the dead mariner haunted that part of the scrub, and the mud flats of Back Bay.

Sometimes, the ghost would stand on the road, and cause cars to go off the cliff. Teenagers were the best for this. The ghost of Gálvez also caused a small plane to be confused, when he made faint light. The pilot thought the mud flats was the end of a runway, and the pilot was too late to pull up and crashed and died.

The ghost of Gálvez looked at the writer, and wondered how he could hurt the gringo. It was too bad the light was so strong. Gálvez wanted to hurt the gringo who parked over his grave. Anyone who walked on his grave, he knew of it. Wherever he was, it brought him back. Gálvez was doomed to linger here forever. With his ghost eyes, he looked at the writer, and knew the writer would be that way too.

No comments: