Marfa Clouds
Outside KRTS 93.5 FM, home of Marfa Public Radio, a freckled canopy of clouds gather high above me, shocks of white hanging upside down in endless blue sky. It's the afternoon of July 13th, and having just drove in from Phoenix the night before, I decide to give my legs a much needed stretch while doing some sightseeing around town. Through its lobby window, my eye is caught by sleeping neon letters spelling out the station's designation. Inside, behind a pane of glass, I try my best to read the lips of the disc jockey as I gently wrap my fingers around the handle of the front door and pull. Noticing my festival pass which skips against my chest as I enter, Carolina, one of the news writers, asks me if I'm here for said festival. I nod yes and dig for its program, it having since sunk to the bottom of my canvas filmmaker bag. Fishing it free, I paw through its newsprint pages and point, "That's me,” my finger resting below a synopsis. Behind us, on the other side of the glass, a white truck idles past. The driver's tanned forearm rests on the windowsill, its fine coat of blonde hair cooled by the breeze that whispers through San Antonio St., Marfa's main thoroughfare. The engine seems to hum in tune with the stillness of the high plains, as he waits at a stop light, one of the three that I counted that day. In the distance, a slow moving cloak of grey rolls towards us, heavy with the possibility of rain. I spy a group of theatergoers on the opposite sidewalk heading west, some I recognize from the opening night dance party. They laugh, shirtless college boys in overalls and boat shoes followed by a young woman in a black linen poncho and a white cowboy hat. She furrows her brow at her smartphone’s inability to find a signal, and looking up through her sunglasses, she too, considers the sky.