I. The Desert, The Body, The God 

We are the people of yellow sand, the people of the dirt and gray stones. The beige boulders are our bodies, the silty sediment is our soul. The cracked desert, our terracotta hands and feet, orange in the sweltering sunlight. We are but the taste of dry soil, the grit of gravel between the teeth of the desert. How did such soft water erode a canyon? How did such soft water carve its way through a valley, leaving ringed scars on the walls of sandstone? Sandstone, glowing its red, its maroon fire and smoldering white spiraling across the rigid plateaus; the pink rings glide across the dusty rock as the white clouds roll across the shady basin. Now, the world fades to deep blues and cold sand. 

The secret is that God paints with the brightest palette. The secret is that God once sat criss-cross applesauce on the desert floor, drawing shapes in the withered clay. And God pulls our rib from the desert’s corners, and He breathes into our nostrils in the form of puffy clouds and air that forces warmth into the lungs of the desert. But it is empty, and still, we are lifeless. God weeps. Onto our spiritless bodies cool tears fall, and the sand clumps together, and the soil relaxes its grip on the earth, and the sky takes a deep breath, and the mountains let the droplets slide from their swaying stone.

II. The Rain 

The sky is a striking mass of clouds, cobalt melting into purple. They are God’s anguish, they are the vessels of yearning for life where nothing is supposed to grow. To love something beyond impossibility, to nurture life with the sweat of the brow and dirt-caked hands, to weep over arid soil that remains without a heartbeat is the most beautiful kind of suffering. As God picks up the soil and lets its sterile form fall from His hands, the tears slid from His nose, fat droplets hitting the desolate landscape, absorbed into the barren earth. Above, the clouds wait patiently, blanketing the sky in their rumbling hum, climbing lethargically over the mountains, floating across the empty canyons. Thunder booms across the gray, hesitantly at first, then—as God lifts his hands to the sky and distorts his face and mouths his soundless cries—it roars throughout the land, shaking the hills and devouring the beige silence of desiccated sand. Lightning, its yellow glory, splits the sky and crashes to the ground, knocking God onto his back. Tears stream from the corners of His eyes, and the sky—mirroring His anguish—lets its own droplets shyly fall to the ground, slowly at first, then in rapidly crashing waves. The symphony of storm, the percussionist pitter-patter of raindrops, the tremolo of thunder and crescendo into the crashing cymbals of lightning sounds throughout the desert. 

Onto God’s eyelashes the rain fell, muddling his tears with the fresh rainwater. God opened His eyes and looked at the swollen clouds. He let the raindrops kiss His lips, and let His hands spread into the sky, catching the rainfall in the palms of His hands. He lay on His back and tasted the cold rainwater, and He was deafened by the grumble of thunder while His hair flew up with the lightning’s electric buzz. Finally—there would be life finally. God laughed. From His mouth, at first, then from His belly—shaking his shoulders, then his whole body, the laughs

diffusing into the sky. From His joy, and from His laughter, sprouted the means for life. And from His mouth, a cactus grew between his teeth, green and smooth, ridged in the corners. His laughter channeled into the pink flower resting peacefully atop the cactus, its folded petals opening all at once beneath the clearing sky. 

III. This Life Would Not Die 

Soon the saplings spread across the barren land, pushing their way from the dark soil into the desert’s sunlight. The cactuses’ flat bodies, masses of green discs, sprout slowly from the ground, growing higher into the air and bursting into yellow flowers and red fruit the way bubbles rise and pop. The saguaros stand tall, slender, with branches reaching into the sky, green and yellow striped skin absorbing the orange sunlight; the prickly pear cacti wear flowered hats, letting their thorny heads rest against the shoulder of their neighbor. The barrel cacti, too nervous to bloom, shy their ways, squat low to the ground, round and spiked. Along the base of purple and orange mountains, clumps of green weeds dotted with specks of pink flowers embrace the beige sand. Yellow wildflowers gather in tangled webs against the dusty desert, stubborn in their refusal to yield to the searing sunlight. The hairy Joshua trees are pariahs, standing off to the distance, their awkward limbs ending in green-needled hands. Wiry sagebrush shares its inside jokes with the Yucca plants, and the Ephedra’s stiff stalks fill the gaps in the desert’s conversation. This life would not die. 

That which was desolate, which never dreamed of becoming anything but wind-tossed sand, bloomed into some Garden of Eden, some holy shrine devoted to the desert’s once barren womb and the God who made life possible. The brown earth wears its green coat proudly, admiring its life-splotched sleeves and blooming buttons. God, the Giver of Life, shielded His eyes from the white-rimmed sun and turned to look at the brown form moving down the pink mountains. 

IV. The Animals 

The bighorn sheep 

with its curled horns 

and hazel eyes 

hops down the mountainside, 

hurtling red boulders 

and sliding across  

the sandy slope.

The bighorn sheep stands firm at the base of the mountain. A muscular body, a white tipped snout and fur the color of sun-dried dirt moves slowly, as if the animal were just waking up. The sheep lifts his head against the dazzling sun and lets his eyes take in the green landscape, his nose twitching with the smell of new life. He lumbers over to a patch of wildflowers and begins to chew, moving his jutting jaw carelessly, munching the new grasses as if the world is only his. From the shadows, a great number of sheep strut steadily towards the newly-bloomed weeds, their long legs gently displacing sand, letting the wind carry it away. In this way, life gives way to life.

The translucent scorpion crawls across the toes of the desert, its curled stinger ready to attack its nearest predator. The spotted fringe-toed lizard chases the scorpion, having to work far more for its sustenance than the bighorn sheep. Resting on the branch of a sprawling saguaro, the cactus hawk watches the anxious woodrat scurry across the desert floor, its small body weaving in between the cacti and wildflowers until finding a burrow underneath a dusty boulder. The cottontails and black-tailed jackrabbits gambol hurriedly by the diamond-vested viper as it slithered and hissed its venomous warning. Nearby, the two-footed roadrunner makes a feast of the desert iguana. The gopher tortoise stretches its wrinkled neck from underneath its hexagonally-patterned shell, its rough skin mirroring the cracked desert floor. 

God watches as the desert welcomes its stinging insects, its soaring birds, its slinking reptiles and lumbering mammals. His smile is the smile of a proud father, of a burrowing owl who has nursed its dead young back to health. Finally, from the ashes of the desert itself, we bloom—humans, naked, but we feel no shame. And God—upon seeing the lifeless being for which he had wept stand before him, breathing His own spirit through nostrils molded craftily from the desert sand—weeps again. He embraces the man, and feels the curve of his ribs, and runs His hands along his sharp jaw; and He embraces the woman, and spins her around, and feels the way her soft strands of hair fall loosely over each other. God loved His children. God loved them as they thanked Him for their creation. He loved them as they took each other’s hand in their own and walked away from the beautiful desert. He loved his children as their shadows danced under the setting sun. And He loved them when they vanished into the desert wind, leaving God and the bighorn sheep behind.

V. The Humans 

A black road cuts through the desert’s yellow heart. The burning asphalt sears the pads of the bighorn sheep’s foot, roasts the soft skin of the salamander. The sound of desert wind and calling birds is replaced by screeching tires and honking cars, hulking machines emitting gray smoke. Exhaust fumes melt into the sky, the sweet air sinking into leaking oil and sticky gasoline. A neon turquoise Chevrolet rips through the landscape, crunching the patterned shells of the desert tortoises trying to get back to their burrows. In the car, a bookie, a businessman, a gangster, a bartender, a prostitute, and a philanthropist tally up the number of turtle shells hit, hollering each time tortoise blood leaks into the cracked road. 

A bighorn sheep stands in the middle of the road, paralyzed by the speeding machine headed for its soft body. A vicious honk, a swerving car, and two hind legs left in the middle of the road. “Out here, it’s either kill or be killed,” says the philanthropist. The car erupts with laughter. 

In the distance, God holds out His arm and sticks up His thumb, a holy hitchhiker. His bare feet are unnatural on the paved road, and the turquoise of the approaching Chevrolet juts out unnaturally against the landscape. God, upon seeing His children, begins to smile the smile of a proud father. The car whizzes past him, but not before the gangster reaches his hand out and chucks a can of Coke out of the window. “What’s some homeless guy doing out here?” asks the prostitute. The car erupts with laughter. God still smiled as He was left to die in the industrial desert. 

Years later, the businessman returns to the desert, opens his briefcase before a shriveled God. He pulls out papers and a black ballpoint pen, and begins to lay out the law of the land for

the homeless man: “You see, we got big O-tels we’re puttin’ up right in these here spots and we got a right to this land under the Law of Eminent Domain, but your Dischargeable Debt meets the Exculpatory Claim necessary to make a Fraudulent Transfer through the Reaffirmation Agreement so here’s your copy of the Writ of Certiorari and before you file a Habeas Corpus here is our Subpoena Duces Tecum.” God signs on the dotted lines, and the machines come to dig up the desert with their metal claws and piercing drills, and God is left to roam, his only possessions a crushed can of Coke and a packet of papers with black print. 

VI. Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas! 

The buildings populate like invasive species, their neon projections and twinkling lights obscuring the faded mountains. The city strip is a stomach after gorging on fool’s gold: overstuffed on veneers. Hotels flaunt their innumerable windows, their shining exteriors housing rotten patrons. Architecture stolen from around the world puts on its best accent for the night and amuses the tourists; ‘There’s Greece! There’s Paris! And that’s New York!’ Between the glimmering buildings and tourist traps stand even more glimmering buildings and tourist traps. And what little space isn’t occupied by dancing fountains and fake palm trees sit black parking lots with their rigid white lines. 

In this city, the alcohol flows wildly, the ridiculously long souvenir cups freezing the fingers of the tourist’s hand. In this city, the music blasts from the busker’s speakers, the weed smoke lingers in the polluted air, the homeless man tells each tourist ‘God bless you’ (he doesn’t mean it). In this city, the showgirls ruffle their feathered costumes, the acrobats hang from flying trapeze, and the confetti flies from the magician’s wand (each piece is 5 cents). The tourists clap, and the tourists holler, and the tourists spend their money, the only green for miles. The hotels continue to shine too brightly. 

VII. Reflections from Inside a Carriage of the High Roller 

I must admit, it’s quite a stunning sight, though: the skyscrapers craning their necks into the clouds, the bustling streets, the tourists in their plastic flip-flops. The scintillating neons blend into each other, the reds, yellows, blues, and greens forming a swirling galaxy, a magical blur of stars shoved into street lamps. From up here, the taxis look like yellow critters, crawling along the streets in search of patrons. Here I am, peering out at this godless city from the window of its tourist trap, and I feel a rush of gratitude and disgust. How did we morph from the people of the desert into the people of the lights? How did we watch as the sleeping animals were awakened by the city that never sleeps? Maybe this city is a reminder to remember your beginnings. Maybe this whole city is the reminder not to lose oneself in pursuit of the dazzling lights. 

Still, I must acknowledge that I live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Yes, the gold may be spray paint, and the hotels climbing upwards into the sky may house pushy tourists, but our city is a beacon of light in the sprawling desert. It is a mirage in the sand, a smoky, artificial dreamland. It is the only place where you may hike to the bottom of a canyon, feel the desert wind on your skin, then gamble your life away and get married by Elvis all in the same night. It is the only city where you can really feel the moment, a city refusing to be dulled down by the slow-motion sluggishness of the suburbs. This city is alive.

I gaze out of the window and wonder what would have happened if I had not been raised here, in Sin City, the place where children should never be raised. Who would I be if not for the casinos and their cigarette smoke, the strip and its colorful nights, the hotels and their thousand-windowed faces? How could I have grown without the desert and its dreaming creatures, the canyons and their stretching hues, the mountains and their purple shadows? Both the strip and the desert form the pieces of my identity, and to both Las Vegas and its Valley I am grateful for the opportunity to grow with the city as it stretched its hands into the outreaches of the desert. From the sand to the twinkling lights, from the cacti to the glittering signs, from the tortoise to the costumed dancers, I learn to love my godless city and its nature. I am grateful to live in Las Vegas. 

I step away from the window and wait for my departure from the carriage. A lizard scurries across the ground as I walk out into the Vegas night.