“The Curandero” Adrian Villarreal – First Place It was too late. The Aloe Veras and Agaves in terracotta pots sat droopy and on the verge of decay. It was too late. There was nothing Maya loved more than her plants – not even me. I mean, I was probably a close second. We’d been dating six months now. She trusted me. Trusted me enough to let me crash at her place while she was gone on vacation for a month. All I had to do was watch over her plants and make sure they didn’t die. Easy enough, right? And yet here they were, arms wrinkled and sagging like a body with no bones. Truth be told, I hadn’t neglected them, I had forgotten all about them. Forgotten how each was inherited from Maya’s dead aunt. Forgotten that they were from a linage that spread three generations back, plants that were originally propagated from the garden of Maya’s great-great grandmother in Sonora, México. “Remember to talk to them,” Maya had told me as she pressed her finger into the pot of the Agave to check the dampness of the dirt. “You want me to talk to myself in front of these plants?” I asked. “Any sort of company is good. Just talk to them, and if it starts to warm up again, please bring them inside.” She rolled the wet soil between her finger and thumb. I took Maya’s warning with little caution. I had returned the following day with a bottle of tequila to replace what we’d drained that weekend along with a pot of Mexican Marigolds for an altar with photographs of people who looked like Maya. I placed the pot of marigolds next to the skull candies painted pink, “to remind us of our mortality” Maya had explained to me. Sticks of incense were placed in a bowl at the bottom of the altar to carry her prayers. Near the bowl was a small hill of salt my grandma once told me was meant to purify the spirits. Papel picado, confetti paper, hung from the ledge of the altar in bright colors. The smiling suns, doves, and flowers were symmetrically cut with Maya’s steady hands. An unopened pack of smokes, fresh 62
Vortex
Short Story
