Work had brought me to a shit town in the New Mexico desert. The town and surrounding land was woefully flat. The high school was a collection of three squat buildings and a dead football field. The houses were rotting away, porches collapsing into the dust. The streets were vacant and those people I did see were a wretched collection of ugly, fat, genetically similar monsters... except for her.
She had taken out a loan to open the only "cafe" in the town. It was an old locksmith's shanty that stood on a corner surrounded by dirt. She had painted the building a hideous pistachio green. The place was empty so she sat with me while I had a coffee. She had been there her whole life. She said she liked Andy Warhol. She said her favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. She believed her cafe would bring money and culture to her disgusting hometown which was otherwise without industry, purpose, or hope. She was naive and pathetic and it broke my heart to see her beauty and potential wasted in this land of aimless mutants. I gave her my number and told her to look me up if she's ever in Los Angeles. She smiled and we shook hands, and as I left I prayed she'd never call, because outside of this place, her looks would pale and her simple mind would be lain bare. After all, a desert flower is only pretty because it's surrounded by dirt.
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