Crystal Dreams

The stranger sat across from me and set down a bottle of beer. "You've been in the desert far too long."

I looked up. "Why do you say that?"

He appraised me. "Rusty skin. You have the desert embedded in you."

"You got a problem with that?"

"Ah. Even your language has changed. You are indeed a chameleon, Dr. Jacoby." He grinned. "Most people who come to Sedona are seekers. But you--You're hiding. Why here?"

I shrugged. "In a town full of kooks, it's easy to blend in." I took a sip from my beer bottle. "I'm just another weirdo."

"Selling rocks. That's a far cry from plastic surgery."

"They're crystals."

"You believe in that shit?"

"No. But I don't pretend to either. Tell the customers they're wasting their time. They buy them anyway. Had a lady drop a hundred dollars on one this afternoon." The smell of mesquite came through the open window. I gestured towards the mountains. "That I believe in."

"So you're Thoreau, Westernized."

I laughed. "With about a third of the vocabulary and less inclination to walk."

"But you did walk. You walked out on your wife. Your kids. Your million dollar business. You had it all."

"One day, I looked out of my window and realized that an eye lift isn't going to improve anyone's confidence. My business was false hopes and sandcastle dreams."

"So you are searching. Your wife is worried sick, you know."

"Not my problem."

"She paid me good money to find you."

I took a roll of cash from my front pocket. "Tell her I died." And perhaps part of me had.

"You got a crystal you can recommend for my wife? She's into that stuff."

"Don't waste your money."

The stranger laughed and stood. "So you find yourself?"

"Thought I did," I said. "But it was just a mirage."

"We're all mirages," the stranger said, taking my money and his bottle of beer. "Rest in peace, Doctor."

"I intend to," I replied.

This was written for this week's Trifecta Writing Challenge. The word was rusty.

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