Arizona Phoenix and the 4th Haboob (NGCC)

It was 117 degrees, a date record, when the 4th haboob of the summer ate Phoenix. It blinded people and clogged air conditioners. I was singin' along with a Hank Williams (no... NOT Jr.!) version of "Cool Water."  I'd just gotten through the chorus with Ol' Hank:

"Cool Water"

Chorus - Hank Williams

"Dontcha lissen to 'im Dan

He's th' Devil, not a man

And he spreads th' burnin' sands

With water {water}

Co-o-ol, clear water"

while I read a blog about nutballs who got knotted knickers over using the appropriate Arabic word to describe this event, when…

...she came through the door like it wasn't there, which, in point of fact, it no longer was. Shrieking and howling, she roamed the office, scattering papers and insulting my eardrums. "Where?!?" she screamed. "Find him!" It wasn't a request.

"Find who?" My name is Arizona Phoenix (remember, I didn't name myself). I find people and things, mostly in Phoenix, Arizona. It's what I do, and I'm good at it, but it's usually helpful to know who or what (or both) I'm looking for.

"Oasis," she shrieked, "find Oasis! Without him I will shred myself and die!"

I pulled my sand-clogged 9-mm out of a pile of the stuff and began dismantling it to clean it. "You need to calm down," I said. "There's no space in here, and nothing to drive your distraction. Just settle and tell me what happened."

The noise and pressure lessened. "I apologize," she moaned. "I am so worried that I worry not about my effect on others." The swirling haze in the center of which I sat, untouched, began to coalesce. The form of a voluptuous woman began to be revealed. No... say better, 'suggested.' She was never revealed.

"We came," she said, "generations ago, my sisters and I, bringing with us our Oases. Your kind was drilling and paving and blocking the advance of the Sahara, tapping the Oases for water and our very soul for oil. We attached parts of ourselves to travelers and left. Most of us probably died, but a few came here, to a perfect new desert. Bu-bu-but n-n-n-now..." and she began to howl again.

"You are?" I prompted, short circuiting her self-destruction.

"Haboob," she wept, sand falling in a stream from her eyes, "the 4th Haboob. And today I die, as my sisters, the first three Haboobs died, for Oasis ran, telling me to find him in the city. But when I came there are palms everywhere, and I cannot tell the right ones."

"I can," I said, more surely than I felt. "Come, I will show you." She followed me into the street, and melded with the rest of her dissipating self.

As quickly as I could, I drove to the Zoo. I could see as we arrived, a subtle wrongness about the desertscape where the Dromedary camels and other Arabian Desert denizens roamed. "Oasis is there!" I pointed to the slightly out-of-focus palms and grasses. "The real Oasis hides within the false."

I went back to the office, and reread the letters to the editor. I wondered what they'd say if they knew the REAL truth. If ever Arizona found out there were real alien illegal aliens among them...