for McSweeneys: Debra

Here’s the opening paragraph to the piece I wrote for McSweeney’s. Full text at the link above.

He'd been her only friend in the desert, and by way of recompense, she'd shot him in the head, right between the eyes. It was the kindest thing she could think of at the time, and he'd fallen like four felled pines. She is a tall woman, dressed in black and white, and alone, now. Her mission wavers, ghostly and insubstantial with the heat haze already rising from the sand dunes halfway to the horizon. She straightens her rumpled skirt, feels the lump on the back of her head, checks her watch. 8:37 a.m.