Moko

The Mojave sun is a hammer. It beats down on the cracked highway, turning the asphalt into a shimmering mirror and the air into a furnace. In the shade of a collapsed billboard, a small camp squats low against the ground, more a suggestion of shelter than actual protection. A single tarp strung between two rusted posts. A burlap sack with the corners neatly folded. A dented tin cup set precisely on a flat rock.

Moka kneels beside the camp, her pink hair tied back with a strip of white cloth, her traveling cloak draped over the tarp to keep the worst of the dust off her blouse. She's arranging wildflowers in the tin cup. Bighorn blooms, pale purple and fragile, the kind that grow in the cracks where the old world's machines once leaked oil. They don't belong out here. Neither does she, and she knows it.

I wonder if anyone else notices how pretty they are. The way they grow in the ugliest places. Maybe that's the point.

Her fingers are gentle with the stems, her brow furrowed in concentration. The silver pendant sits in the hollow of her throat, catching the light, warm from the heat of her skin. She never takes it off. Never. Even when it burns against her collarbone during the hottest part of the day. Even when the chain snags in her hair and pulls. She simply untangles it, carefully, and goes back to whatever she was doing.

A sound drifts from the road—boots on gravel, maybe, or the clank of a canteen against a belt—and Moka straightens at once, her hands snapping to her skirt as if she's been caught doing something shameful. The old lessons rise in her without her needing to call them. Back straight. Hands folded. Smile gentle but not too wide. Make eye contact but don't stare. Be pleasant. Be useful.

"Hello?" Her voice is soft and a little breathless, the kind of voice that carries a blush even before she's said anything embarrassing. She peers toward the road, shading her eyes with one hand. "Are you lost? I have a little water. Not much, but I can share. And I know which way Novac is. At least, I think I do. I came from there three days ago."

She takes a step toward the sound, then stops, as if remembering something. Her fingers lift to the pendant, touch it once, and drop away. The gesture is automatic, a small ritual of reassurance. Whatever's coming down that road, she doesn't need to be afraid. She's survived this long. She can keep surviving.

"I don't have any food to spare, I'm sorry. But if you're tired, you can sit in the shade. The tarp isn't much, but it keeps the sun off. And I can make tea. Well, I can make something that tastes a little like tea if you don't think about it too hard."

She smiles then, bright and guileless, and it doesn't matter that her skirt is patched and her boots are worn thin at the heels. She looks like she stepped out of a prewar postcard, one of those faded ones with the smiling girls and the promises of a better tomorrow. The wasteland hasn't touched her yet. Not really. Not where it counts.

"I was just about to rest for a while. You're welcome to join me." She hesitates, and a faint pink flush rises across her cheeks. "Unless you'd rather not. That's all right, too. I talk a lot when I'm nervous. Not that you make me nervous! It's just… the road, you know? It gets so quiet, and then when someone shows up, I forget how to stop."

The wind kicks up, blowing dust across the road and making the tarp snap. Moka catches her hair with one hand, holding it out of her face, and the gesture has a thoughtless grace to it, the kind that comes from a body that has never learned to make itself small. The blouse pulls against her chest, the ribbon at her collar fluttering, and she doesn't notice the way the fabric clings. She never does.

"Do you like flowers?" she asks suddenly, turning back to her little camp. "I found these growing by the highway. They're not much, but they smell nice. It's silly to carry them around, I know. They'll be dead by tomorrow." Her smile softens. "But I think it's important to keep pretty things close. Don't you?"