Deer Haven, Badlands, South Dakota | Darius Nabors, Google Maps

The bouncing jeep headed down a faint dirt roadway towards the rocky outline of the Badlands.

A half mile later, a more unexpected and disconcerting thing happened. A horizontal split wrenched across the landscape–dividing the world into two distinct views. Above was the world he knew: pinnacles, hoodoos and mesas. Beneath, lay a city, both ancient-looking and impossibly new.

It wasn’t as if the split had just happened, perhaps it had always been this way. Tom had never actually been way out here. No one really did. As they drove down a slope and into the gap, he watched the familiar features of the Badlands evaporate overhead. From here, it was evident that this part of the landscape was only a projection over the city that lay below. He turned to the woman, astounded.

“Holographic camouflage,” she said, pointing up. “It’s a mirage, essentially.”

—

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

Two things:

1. Sorry for being so late to the party. A family trip and a fallen tree had me playing catch-up these past few days.
2. I owe you an explanation on the story–it’s actually an excerpt from the first novel I ever wrote. I started it in August of 2011 following a family trip to the Black Hills. It’s my write-er-versary. The book was called Panacea, the story of a young man who finds himself in a secret compound in the Badlands, where science and magic collide.

3 Milch Court, Loxton, Australia | Google Maps

Charlotte hosed the garbage can out and wheeled it to the side of the garage. She made a face as she dried her hands. “Maybe we should hire out. These municipal sanitation workers…they just don’t care.”

“Charlotte, I’m—”

She gave me a sharp look. The words withered in my mouth. Instead, I followed her back into the garage, hands stuffed in my pocket. Would she ever forgive me? How could she, if we could never talk about it?

She fitted the recycling container into its niche and stared out the open garage door. “They’re not straight.”

“Excuse me?”

“The junipers. They’ve never been straight. I want to cut them down.”

I looked out at the landscaping, astonished. The neat spindles of evergreen along the property line had been one of the reasons we’d bought the place. That day, she’d clapped her hands, delighted. “What a perfect house,” she’d said.

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

Long John’s Showbar, Great Yarmouth, UK } Google Maps

He was a beef of a man, broad as a London bus with a jutting jaw. He eyed the tourists perched at the hightop across the pub. “What you think they be on about?”

“Americans.” The bartender shrugged. “Jollificeartions is me guess.”

The man nodded, brow asquiggle. “Putting on parts is me guess.”

“Aye, could be.” Both men turned to eye the three ladies.

“I got this,” the big man said at least. He lumbered toward them.

At the ladies’ table, his ale sloshed in the glass. “Ar yer orrite bor?”

The blonde’s mouth dropped open. The redhead turned to the brunette, whispering, “What did he say?”

The brunette squared her shoulders and shot him a bold look. “You want to shoot the breeze, fella?”

“Oy,” he said. He took a step back, then pivoted for the bar.

“Wha’d they say?”

“Cor blast me, brother. Was a loada ole squit!”

–

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

To understand this story, you might need this:

Norfolk dialect translator

La Bajada, Cuba | Eleonora Vendetta, Google Maps

“Iowa?”

“I have a map, I’ll show it to you.”

While Mama ran to Father’s study, the girls eyed one another. It was Raquelin who spoke. “What will we do without them?”

Ana pressed her lips tight. With Father facing decades in prison, and Mama going into hiding, it was the only way. To keep the family together, they must first be wrenched apart.

She did not want to live somewhere else. She wanted to swim in the ocean, to feel the sea breeze. Cuba was her heart—its ocean, her soul. It was the first thing she saw when she flung open her shutters in the morning, and the last thing she heard at night.

When mama brought the map, Ana traced a finger around the shape of this ‘Iowa.’ There was no ocean there. There was no sea within a thousand kilometers.

How was a girl to live?

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

Inspired by the story of Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta. who was sent to live an an Iowa orphanage at age 12, following her father’s involvement in the Bay of Pigs.

Mendieta said: “My exploration through my art of the relationship between myself and nature has been a clear result of my having been torn from my homeland during my adolescence. The making of my silueta in nature keeps (make) the transition between my homeland and my new home. It is a way of reclaiming my roots and becoming one with nature. Although the culture in which I live is part of me, my roots and cultural identity are a result of my Cuban heritage.”

Santa Ana, El Salvador | Lopez Lopez, Google Maps

It was here we prayed. Rosibel held the infant, while the boy clung to my chest. The older children sat solemn upon the bench.

We’d come so far, but there were miles more to go. Miles of jungle, of desert, of plain. Catching trains when we were able, walking when we couldn’t, and every day facing bottomless hunger, endless thirst, and the banditos that preyed upon the desperate such as we were.

It was still better than what we risked by staying in San Salvador. Ivanito shifted in my lap. He was but three, but he would never know a gang initiation, or to have to murder another man just to stay alive. Our kids would live a good life.

We were hard workers, Rosibel and I. We’d keep them safe. I breathed the scent of Ivanito’s hair and pressed my lips to his head.

Let nothing come between us.

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

Balbulol Dive Resort, Indonesia | Lera 76, Google Maps

Mr. Vanadel called my papa lazy, and it was true he was no fisher anymore. Instead he sat on our slant porch carving rosewood into asmat. When Mr. Vanadel said he should take them down to shore to sell them to the tourists, Papa just said, “What for?”

It was the same thing with everything. Him, so many times going out to sea, putting gas in the boat, then fourteen-hour days, earning pennies on the pound. He’d come back poorer than when he left. And if the rains fell, or the tides turned swell, or the winds blew in from the south, no man among us could break even. Which to me is why he said it, why I heard it more and more, and why I got to wondering if it made any difference if I finished school. Because the thing I had to ask myself, was: What for?

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

This seemed like such an idyllic place when I picked it, but I didn’t read far before I learned about the wrenching poverty suffered by most of the population. To learn more: Behind the beauty of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat islands lie poverty and neglect