El Freezes Over
The neighbor’s house screamed Texas with its bleach-white bull skull resting against the brick exterior, surrounded in a wreath of earthy potpourri. The lawn void of any grass, save for the occasional brown tuft sticking out like fur on week-old roadkill. The skull, while not inviting for a tourist, no doubt embraced the natives like a welcome mat. A BBQ grill, only feet away, added to the stereotype. This was El Paso after all.
But it wasn’t the neighbor’s deathly decor that stood out on the street but the cryogenics lab in the driveway next door. That was the main attraction. Like a metal coffin for two, it sat raised on bricks. Crooked PVC ran from the box into the house like chaotic plumbing from a Dr. Seuss world. The neighbors didn’t seem to mind. They’d bar each window from potential criminals, but no harm done with a chilled stiff in the driveway down the street. They were too busy planting evergreens in their dirt laden lawns, putting some color into the wasteland.
I seemed to be the only one unaffected by the heat, whose ability to observe the abnormal was still intact.
Bodies were being frozen right there on their street and no one noticed.