The man with the avocados came every Thursday. Mom told us to play outside, not to return until the sun had dipped itself into the Pacific. Birdie brought his transistor radio, played corrido music, danced next to the cliffs. The lights of Mexico glowing like a soccer net. Mi hermano. Mom told us what a gift it was living so close to the border. The man with the avocados crossing every Thursday, bringing the mutant ones: two-seeded, bulbs growing out like ginger root. Abuelo too proud to give up. Birdie stole his sombrero, hid it among the fig trees.
Nicholas Cook’s fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Miscreant, New Flash Fiction Review, Camroc Press Review, and New World Writing. He lives in Texas.
A Quiet Courage 