In the Alfalfa

The street is quiet as I stroll the rural Mexico neighborhood. My cellphone weighs heavily in my backpack. A small mountain looms just outside the neighborhood. It looks like a scout for the mountain range in the distance. This little barrio is my last stop. My year in Mexico 1984 has been one I will cherish. The people are friendly and kind. Strangers are a rarity and warmly welcomed. This neighborhood is miles from the nearby Aguascalientes and seems an oasis in the desert.

The houses are brightly painted as I make my way into the heart of the neighborhood. I hear the sound of a cow lowing from behind a wall of one of the houses. I stumble over the cobblestone street but smile at the quaintness of them. Suddenly, a young girl darts from between two houses sweating under the relentless Mexico sun. The first person I have seen. I watch her continue on past the end of the neighborhood and finally plunge into a verdant field of alfalfa and miraculously disappear, like the mirage I expect to soon appear over the baking streets. I turn full circle glad of the siesta that has gripped the residents and pull out my phone to document the scene. Do we stay or do we go? A chicken picks its way across the cobblestones. I wonder if chickens are on the manifest for Mars.

I wander slowly towards the green alfalfa and wonder how it is so green under the assault of the sun. As I approach, I see water gushing from a well filling various irrigation ditches that run off into the distance. I stand on the cusp of an agrarian paradise. Civilization behind and fields ahead with city only a smudge in the valley below. I breathe deeply. There is room here. Room for us all.

A thin voice reaches my ears. A nonsensical tune about cats and dogs and moms and dads and I realize I hear the girl. Singing to herself in the alfalfa. I pull out the phone quickly and record the song. Tears fill my eyes. She is lying in the alfalfa. Singing.

I reach down and brush the alfalfa shocked at how cool it is in the heat of the day. I step into the field and sink down to my knees letting the alfalfa swallow me in a riot of green ice for the first time that day.

I lay down letting the child's voice wash over me. A small seed of doubt works it way deep into my belly. I sit up and look again at the wide sky and the fields stretching into the distance and I am suddenly worried. The girls song has dwindled to a whisper and I smile. I think the siesta she was avoiding has found her at last. I worry about the sudden invasion of this space. I worry about the girl. Would her entire future be stolen for mine?

I retreat from the alfalfa loath to disturb the girl from her peaceful slumber. I slink from the neighborhood to the retrieval point.

My vote is Mars.