The American Dream

“This is a strange country, is it not?” Jean said, leaning on the handle of his spade as its point dug into the dirt.

       “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” Felix said.

       “Don’t be a smartass,” Jean said. “They’re probably listening.”

       The air was dry and crisp, and left a layer of grit in their nostrils with each inhale. Beyond the fence was an endless sea of brown in all directions, except for the faint, hazy mirage of Cheyanne to the southwest.

       Felix poured a load of dirt on a circular sieve, tapping the frame with his slip-on sneaker to encourage the granules to pass through the mesh. He frowned at it and crouched down, rubbing the palm of his hand over the last clumps of un-sifted loam.

       “Anything?” Jean said.

       “What do you think?” Felix said.

       Something buzzed sharply above them, and they both looked up with hand-visors on their foreheads at a drone hovering overhead. Felix pointed down at the empty sieve and held out his arms in a shrug. The tiny aircraft turned sharply, like it was annoyed, and buzzed off.

       “One more flake, and we feast,” Jean said.

       Felix peered down into the current hole they were digging, nearly four feet deep and wide. “Yeah, I’m sure they’ll give us that hot shower too.”

       “And two of their loveliest lady officers waiting for us inside, lathering each other up until we arrive,” Jean said.

       “The funny part is that they’d probably be immigrants themselves,” Felix said. “What is the American term for again for the race traitors? Uncle Phil?”

       “Uncle Tom, I believe,” Jean said. “It really is a strange country, mon gars.”

       Felix squinted across the barren yard at two other men in orange jumpsuits thirty yards away, neck deep in their respective hole. “Bastards are making us look bad,” he said.

       The two of them watched the other pair. They spent several minutes digging out the sides and bottom of their hole, building a big pile next to the rim. Once the mound was too tall to comfortably add more material to, they’d climb out and sift it by huge shovelfuls.

       “You don’t have to be quick, just lucky,” Jean said, shaking his head.

       “Well, we were neither before we got here, let alone now,” Felix said.

       “No, but we were true. And we wrote that report as well and true as any other. Our words were fair and just and necessary.”

       “Didn’t the Americans say that about their Constitution?” Felix said.

       “I suppose they did,” Jean said, plunging his spade in the sandy dirt, pressing the sole of his slip-on on the shovel’s step to drive the blade deep into the ground. The metal made a scraping sound as it cut into the earth.

       They both dug in silence for a while, long enough for a cloud to crawl across the sky and block the sun. Jean sighed as the shade felt almost as good as a cold, wet towel draped over his face. “Do you think we made any difference at all? Did anyone even read that god damned article?”

       “If just one person read it and took it in, it was a success, mon gars,” Felix said.

       “The only success that matters is finding one more speck of gold,” Jean said.

       Felix looked at his friend with a smirk. “Let us manifest destiny then.”