Fields of Fire
The van rattles like it’s about to fall apart as we hit the highway. I feel every bump in the road, every groan of the engine, and I swear it’s louder than it was this morning. Papá’s hands are tight on the wheel, his knuckles white, like he’s trying to squeeze the life out of it. He doesn’t talk much anymore, not unless he has to.
Mamá sits beside him, staring out the window. She keeps rubbing her temple with two fingers like she’s trying to push her thoughts away. Maybe she’s thinking about the gas, or maybe it’s food. It’s always one or the other lately. I don’t ask. I don’t want her to look at me the way she looks at Mateo and Sofía, like she has to figure out how to keep us all alive.
In the back, Mateo leans against Sofía, whispering something that makes her giggle. They’ve been playing I Spy for hours, though I don’t know how. What’s left to spy out here except dirt, sky, and those dead trees that look like skeletons? I should probably join them, but I don’t. They think this is a road trip, like we’re on some big adventure. It’s better they think that.
The heat in here is unbearable. The air conditioning broke months ago, and now the smell of sweat is everywhere. It’s worse when I move, so I sit still, staring out at the flat expanse of Texas. Everything is cracked and dry, like it hasn’t rained in years.
Papá finally breaks the silence. “We’ll stop in a couple hours.”
“Do we even have enough gas for that?” Mamá asks, her voice tight and quiet.
Papá doesn’t answer right away. He just stares ahead at the road like he’s daring it to stretch farther. “We’ll manage,” he says, but it’s so low I’m not sure he even meant for us to hear it.
I look down at my journal on my lap, the pen tucked into the spiral binding. I haven’t written anything in days. Every time I try, the words get stuck. How do you describe the end of everything? It’s my seventeenth birthday and I can’t imagine I will live to see eighteen.
A Life Left Behind
Texas was home once. At least, that’s what Papá and Mamá used to say. It’s hard to imagine now, but I remember the stories they’d tell about when they first got here from Honduras. They didn’t have much—just a dream and the will to work for it. Papá picked tomatoes in the fields, Mamá cleaned houses, and somehow, they managed to save enough to rent a little plot of land.
That land was where Mateo and Sofía were born. It was fertile back then, they said, and the seasons came when they were supposed to. We had a garden with tomatoes and peppers, and Mamá taught me how to grow cilantro. “You always need cilantro,” she’d say, smiling as she pressed the seeds into my hand.
But those years are long gone. The rains stopped coming, and then the fires came instead. I still see the blackened husks of trees on the horizon sometimes, reminders of how quickly everything can be taken away. The tomatoes withered, and the peppers followed. Papá tried to make it work, even after the eviction notice came. “It’s our land,” he said over and over, like saying it would make it true.
But it wasn’t.
Now we’re here, driving toward a place we’ve only heard about in whispers. Oregon. They say there’s water there. Farms that need workers. A chance to start over.
I don’t believe in miracles, but Mamá does. I think that’s why she’s so quiet now, staring out the window. Maybe she’s praying. Or maybe she’s remembering what it felt like to have a home.
The Road to Oregon
We join the caravan in New Mexico. At first, it feels like we’re not alone anymore, like maybe there’s safety in numbers. A line of cars, trucks, and vans stretches down the highway—battered, dented, and loaded with everything people could carry. The caravan moves like a slow river, pausing at gas stations and rest stops, then flowing west again.
At night, we park together, huddled at the edges of empty lots or behind gas stations. Someone always starts a fire, and families gather around to share what little they have. Mamá trades tortillas for canned beans with another woman. Mateo and Sofía chase each other around the cars, laughing like they’re at a party. For a little while, it feels almost normal.
But there’s something else here too, under the surface. Desperation. It’s in the way people glance at each other when they think no one’s looking, like they’re weighing what they have against what they need. It’s in the whispers that carry across the campfires, stories of families who didn’t make it or people who took what wasn’t theirs.
On the second night, I see a boy about my age sitting by one of the fires. He’s skinny, with dark hair that falls into his eyes. A dog is curled up at his feet, its ribs showing through its fur. The boy eats sparingly, dipping a piece of bread into a tin of beans and handing most of it to the dog.
I don’t mean to stare, but he notices. “What?” he asks, his voice sharp.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, looking away.
But later, when the fire has burned down to embers, I find myself sitting next to him. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the dog.
“Do you think Oregon’s really like they say?” I ask, keeping my voice low so no one else will hear.
He shrugs, his shoulders thin under his shirt. “Doesn’t matter,” he says. “We don’t have a choice.”
His words stay with me, even after I’ve crawled into the back of the van and closed my eyes. He’s right. None of us have a choice.
Betrayal
It happens in Arizona.
We’d been traveling with another family for a couple of days—a man and woman with two little kids who barely spoke. Their car kept breaking down, so they stuck close to us, probably hoping Papá could help if they got stranded.
The woman approached us one morning while we were packing up camp. “We’ve got extra gas,” she said, holding a red can in her hands. “Thought maybe we could trade.”
Papá hesitated. I could see it in his face, the way his eyes flicked to Mamá and back again. He doesn’t trust people, not anymore. But Mamá smiled, tired but kind. “We need to trust people, or we’ll never make it,” she said softly.
That night, Papá shared what little food we had left—some canned beans, a pack of crackers. The kids ate most of it. Sofía fell asleep with her head on my lap, her tiny fingers clutching the edge of my shirt.
By morning, they were gone.
Their car, their gas can, and half of our food. All of it.
Papá cursed under his breath, kicking the dirt so hard his boot left an imprint. Mamá stood stiffly, her arms crossed over her chest, her jaw tight. She didn’t cry—not in front of us—but I could see the tears in her eyes.
I clenched my fists, my nails digging into my palms. Anger bubbled up in my chest, sharp and burning, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit something. But there was no one to hit. No one to scream at.
“We’ll keep going,” Papá said finally, his voice hoarse. “We don’t stop.”
Mamá nodded, wiping her eyes quickly. She wouldn’t look at us.
I didn’t write that night. I didn’t want to remember it.
An Unexpected Kindness
California feels like a wasteland, all dust and heat. The sun burns down on us as we drive, and every mile feels heavier than the last. By the time we pull into a small roadside stand, we’re all on edge—hungry, tired, and desperate.
The stand isn’t much. Just a folding table and a cooler. A woman stands behind it, her apron smeared with flour, her hair pulled back in a loose braid. The smell hits me first—warm tortillas, fresh and soft. My stomach growls so loudly that Sofía laughs, her small giggle breaking the tension for a moment.
The woman smiles at us as we approach. “You look like you could use something to eat,” she says. Her voice is warm, gentle, like she’s known us forever.
“We don’t have much,” Papá starts, but the woman waves him off.
“Take what you need,” she says, wrapping a stack of tortillas in foil. “Water too.”
Papá hesitates, and I can see the pride in his face warring with his gratitude. But Mamá steps forward, her voice soft. “Thank you,” she says.
I watch the woman as she hands over the food and water. She doesn’t ask for anything in return. She doesn’t even ask our names.
When we’re back at the van, sitting in the shade and eating tortillas that taste better than anything I can remember, I ask Mamá why she did it.
“Some people are just kind,” she says, her voice quiet but sure.
But I don’t believe that. Not really. Not after Arizona. So later, I go back to the woman and ask her myself.
“Why?” I say, holding the last tortilla in my hand.
She looks at me for a long moment before she answers. “Because someone did the same for me once.”
That night, I finally pick up my journal again. I write about her—about her kindness, her smile, and the way she reminded me that maybe the whole world isn’t broken.
It’s not much. But it’s something.
The Fire
We’re almost to Oregon when it happens.
The camp we’ve stopped at isn’t much—just a clearing by the side of the road, surrounded by trees. It’s quieter here, away from the caravan, and Papá thought it might be safer. Mateo and Sofía are restless, running circles around the van while Mamá tries to keep an eye on them.
“Stay close,” she warns, her voice sharp. But Mateo’s always been curious, always testing the edges of the world.
I’m sitting on a fallen log, sketching in my journal when I notice he’s gone. “Mamá,” I say, my voice tight. “Where’s Mateo?”
Her head snaps up, and panic flashes across her face. Papá’s already moving, calling his name.
“Mateo!”
The sound of his voice cuts through the trees, but there’s no answer.
Then I see it. Smoke rising in the distance, curling into the sky like a dark ribbon. My stomach twists.
Papá takes off running toward the smoke, and I follow, my heart pounding so hard it hurts. “Mateo!” I scream, my voice raw, but the smoke is thicker now, stinging my eyes and burning my throat.
We find him near the edge of the forest, standing frozen as flames lick at the dry grass around him. He’s not hurt—thank God he’s not hurt—but the fire has already spread.
Papá scoops Mateo up in his arms, his face wet with sweat and tears. “What were you thinking?” he shouts, his voice breaking. Mateo just buries his face in Papá’s chest, sobbing.
The fire has spread. It has looped around us. We cannot get back to our camp until morning. When we finally do, it’s too late. The fire has taken everything—the van, our clothes, the little tools we had left. All of it, gone.
Mamá sits on the ground, holding Mateo tightly, her tears soaking into his hair. Papá is silent, his head in his hands. I sit beside them, staring at the orange glow in the distance, my fists clenched so hard my nails dig into my skin.
“We’re going to make it,” I say, my voice steady even though everything inside me is shaking. “We didn’t come this far to give up now.”
Nobody answers, but Mamá reaches out and takes my hand.
That night, I write about the fire in my journal. Not because I want to remember it, but because I don’t want to forget how far we’ve come.
Oregon
We finally reach Oregon, on foot—but it’s nothing like I imagined.
The farms are crowded with workers—whole families like ours, bent over in the fields from sunrise to sunset. The air smells damp, a mix of soil and sweat. It’s cooler here, but the work is hard, and the pay is barely enough to buy food.
They send us to a labor camp on the outskirts of town. It’s not much—just rows of tarpaulin roofs stretched over dirt floors. The wind whistles through at night, biting through our thin blankets. Mateo and Sofía don’t complain, but I can see it in their faces: the confusion, the exhaustion. This wasn’t the dream Mamá told them about.
Papá spends his days in silence now, his shoulders hunched and his face hollow. He looks at the other workers—men and women whose hands are rough and calloused, whose eyes are dull—and I see something break in him.
But I can’t let it break me.
I start talking to the other kids, the ones close to my age. At first, they don’t say much, just watch me like I’m crazy. But then I tell them my idea.
“We’re stronger together,” I say. “They can’t ignore us if we stand up for ourselves.”
It’s slow at first. A few of us working together to organize shifts, share food, and help with the younger kids. Then more join. Before long, we’ve got a small garden growing in the corner of the camp—tomatoes, peppers, cilantro. It’s not much, but it’s ours.
Papá doesn’t say anything at first. He just watches from the sidelines, his face unreadable. But Mamá surprises me. One evening, as I’m handing out seeds to the younger kids, she steps up beside me.
“She’s right,” she says softly, looking at Papá. “We can’t keep living like this.”
Papá looks at her for a long time, then at me. He doesn’t speak, but later, when I’m planting cilantro seeds with Mateo, I feel his hand on my shoulder.
“You’re doing good, Mi hija,” he says quietly.
That night, I sit outside under the stars, my journal open on my lap. For the first time in a long time, I know what to write.
“We’ll be okay,” Mamá says beside me, her voice steady.
I nod, the pen in my hand. For the first time, I believe her.
Epilogue
It’s been nearly 70 years since those events— 70 years since I wrote that journal. I have had children of my own. Grandchildren— and even great grandchildren.
The times have changed. But I pray the world never forgets those times. They shaped me as they shaped all of us who survived. I still think about it as if it happened just this morning. In time, the earth recovered. The rains came again. But not without a heavy price.
They say of the 9 billion people in the world when the climate took revenge, only 3 billion were able to survive. My family was lucky. We lost Mamá and Papá before it was all over. But the rest of us survived. Mateo grew to be a fireman and then a fire chief. He retired just last year. Sophia still works as a seamstress. Her husband is a farmer.
Most of the countries from back then don’t exist anymore, but neither does the hatred. The earth eventually forgave us and when it did, I guess we forgave ourselves. The bible once promised a new heaven and a new earth. I haven’t seen heaven yet, but I have been fortunate: I have seen the new earth.