city Lights
for Agua

Yesterday I spoke to the Holy Spirit, which also happens to be a seedless avocado with long brown ears and a puckered chestnut chin, protruding a little further than usual as far as avocados are concerned. There was an uncircumcised Cuban Cohiba clenched tight between his mustard teeth. The smoke dripped out like ancient chemistry and morphed into strange shapes of our past before joining the wisps of clouds that whirled like a fan in the snowy sky above. We made vague plans to travel to Vegas. I had never been to Vegas and could not relinquish the opportunity to visit the contemporary tribe of bald blue midgets who experienced leisure by banging their bony foreheads against boar skinned drums. The avocado wasn’t interested in midgets. He had seen them twice before. He was going to Vegas for the Lights! And though he had seen those Lights upwards of twenty times, they never grew dull on his wide black eyes. Oh, who was I kidding with a delusion of little blue men. Certainly not myself. Deep deep down inside it too was the Lights reeling me through the tempting desert in search of their source: that iridescent twilight oasis whose endless oily candles refused to ever burn out. And the avocado, well the avocado was to be my guide through the ever so familiar unfamiliarity. After all, he had seen those Lights upwards of twenty times. I was placed in charge of packing the suitcase. Poor choice, I had forgotten all the clothes, (but dare I question the choices of the avocado). Instead there were twelve different flavors of candy, two clay shot glasses, a pair of 4D goggles and some fruit punch, the special kind. Somewhere in the mess I had hidden a fly swatter, as I was informed there may be bats on the road ahead. The Holy Spirit provided transportation: a pearl 1979 Cadillac convertible, white leather and all the works which he drove wearing radioactive dishwashing gloves. He handed me an empty revolver which I was to use for the purpose of flagging down rubber hitchhikers and offering them a ride, perhaps even a taste of candy, if they didn’t listen to what mothers say about strangers. Sure, there were gaps in the plan. The map, for example, was full of cigar burns at all the key intersections, and I had left my toothbrush at home. This worried me because there was so much candy and the entire left side of my family were dentists. Come to think of it, I shouldn’t worry too much about that. The entire ordeal had been sealed as quickly as it had sprung, and there was no time to concern oneself with petty details such as those, after all, the Lights had beckoned and we were quick to obey…