#432 The Manzanos- Kirsten Valdez Quade
In the old ranch town of Cuipas in the shadow of the
Manzanos, a little girl lives with her grandfather. The town is past it’s prime
and there is little left but dry grass and rusted fences.
“There are a few families still in our town—mostly old
people, no other children—and those us of who are left are used to the high
weeds, the rumbling houses of neighbors, the plaster that falls like puzzle
pieces. The exposed mud bricks dissolve a little more each time it rains.”
She sees death and desolation around her and so she thinks
she will die soon as well. “I feel my soul inside me, made of thin, pale paper,
fragile…resting above my heart. I move with care and tale shallow breaths so as
not to crush it.”
Everyone leaves, but she must stay to watch it all die, must
outlive her grandfather and Cuipas itself.
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