The Mural

The mural’s colors were garish and rich—deep bronze Indians circling the bright white canopies of a wagon train. Behind, the green trees seemed fluorescent against the shade of a deep wood.

Covered in gray dust and aching from the day, Joe stopped to consider this reconstruction of his people’s history. The romanticism. The racism.

A proud, untrammeled tribe seemed to wake in his heart.

But it was an odd stirring, and as Joe looked ahead, up the boardwalk to the squat row of beige townhouses with their faded lawns and collected refuse, he suddenly bent to unlace his boots.

When he stepped through—onto the cool grass, into the caravan—they were all that he left behind. Read the rest of this entry »