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Show All the Variables & Other Love Stories 38 they happened to ran out of gas, for none of the town's four gas stations had placed an order since midsummer and the subterranean tanks had all been bled hollow weeks ago. No one noticed, for no one had gone to work in weeks. No one had any reason to drive or money for driving. Electricity went extinct. Indoor water dried up. Weekly the men of Taos ceased to souse and loiter and shuffled down to the Rio Grande to splash about in the shallow mud. The collective chronicles of New Mexico through all the ages will fail to produce a happier band of loafers than these good Taoseiios who dared to dream a shining dream and conjured on earth what they'd hoped to inherit in heaven. And yet after these revels Casoban woke at the hour of Matins from a dream that twisted his loneliness. A lavender hue hung from the windows illuminating like a gingerbread village the adobes beyond. The soapstone moon and multitude stars like votive candles vaulted o'er a choir of crickets like chanting monks. Casabon prayed a wishing star for the safe return of his Esperanza. Knowledge a long time brewing in him had brought his consciousness to heed. Just as the moon reflected the sun's light across the sky, so too did Esperanza reflect back-to-him-his projected love. Love, Casabon knew, was the best of him. It was this love, braided to Esperanza's own love, which came shining back upon him when he cast it upon Esperanza. Casabon in her absence had become a stranger to himself, for the best part of himself he recognized through Esperanza's loving eyes. He felt loneliness colder than solitude. He saw now it was not merely Esperanza he'd lost, but himself. And he knew if ever he hoped to have himself again, Esperanza must have him too. The home without the woman had become a terrible hole. |
