{"id":1622,"date":"2012-08-31T01:45:23","date_gmt":"2012-08-31T01:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=1622"},"modified":"2012-08-31T01:45:23","modified_gmt":"2012-08-31T01:45:23","slug":"desert-kingsby-mike-mccormick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/desert-kingsby-mike-mccormick\/","title":{"rendered":"Desert Kingsby Mike McCormick"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/road.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-1623\" title=\"road\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/road-1024x534.jpg?resize=565%2C240\" alt=\"\" width=\"565\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/h1>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">Desert Kings<\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">by Mike McCormick<\/p>\n<p>Tanned arms swing from the windows of a bone-white vehicle. The truck rattles west, where the sun is bleeding all down the horizon.<\/p>\n<p>Inside the cab, clear bottles of water roll around the floor like crazy marbles. Four almost-men ride together in silence. Black athletic jerseys stretch over their golden torsos. The driver wears war-paint under his eyes.<\/p>\n<p>Outside the truck, hissing diamondbacks slink away from coils of their own dead skin. Unnatural plants arch their bodies up to the orange-scorched sky, which has not seen rain in weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Some miles pass. The youngest-looking player shouts up from the truck?s backseats.<\/p>\n<p>?Hey, anyone see that fox back there??<\/p>\n<p>His teammates ignore the question. The road shoots by.<\/p>\n<p>?That brown fox. He had a snake hangin? from his mouth.?<\/p>\n<p>The driver, the one with the war paint, nods his head at this.<\/p>\n<p>The others watch the horizon. In the distance, a new halo of blue light snaps on.<\/p>\n<p>The field awaits them. The driver stamps down on the accelerator.<\/p>\n<p>In a bathroom next to the football field, young girls paint their lips blood-red in a cracked and dusty mirror. They take desert flowers, all kinds of lovely faded purples and blues, and clip them into each other?s hair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tanned arms swing from the windows of a bone-white vehicle. The truck rattles west, where the sun is bleeding all down the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1625,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1622\/revisions\/1625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}