Chili’s Menu, by Cormac M c Carthy

Southwestern Eggrolls – $9.95

In a tortilla made by the boy’s abuela he watched her, with her armfat and canvas apron, cast frijoles negros upon flecks of cilantro like ash fallen silently on a bed of rice, tiny bones chalkwhite against an avocado ranchero sauce creamy in the light of the coals like the obsidian-flecked desert where God has forsaken all life. Outside a pale starving gallena quickens a lizard to its last writhing gasps. Evening creeps in, a single lobo cries out across the mesa as the sun dips bloodred below the thin black spine of the mountain where death will come again many times in the dusty clockless hours before twilight.

Cajun Chicken Pasta – $14.95

He was a flatboatman from Louisiana and all the cocheros said he took pride in how many Mexicans he had killed in the war at Alamogordo, but he was the only one who had a chance of leading them across Comanche Territory on the Rio Tecuate. He spoke in Creole, cursing the still waters under the moon, endless depths capturing the light like a field of pitch, swallowing forever into black oblivion. As they headed south downriver he smoked banana leaf cigarettes and drank whiskey on the deck, stealing chickens from pasajeros at the tip of a colt .45 when he was bored or hungry. In the distance a fire burned. Fire, chaos and cleansing and rebirth, hatred of Righteousness manifested in Nature Absolute, great equalizer that burns in the hearts of all things known and unknown, in the universe having no analogue, unspeakable and calamitous beyond all reckoning.

Mix-n-Match Ribs Platter – $19.99

It was just after sunset when they came upon the wagon. Two vultures screeched at them as they approached, mottled skin quivering with each gasping cry. Frost covered the bodies, glittering like infinite diamonds in the fading light. They were so hungry they didn’t even wait for the fire to finish cooking the flesh before they were tearing into it, glistening rivulets of fat dripping off their dry, cracked chins, heads back, hulking down the rancid meat like ancient owls. The burro had been dead for no more than a day. The others, longer. A trail of dried blood and arrows led away from the overturned wagon and into the mesquite thicket below. But they didn’t notice this. They were hungry, and as they feasted the rib bones cracked with a haunted resonance that echoed across the flat breaks into the canyon and mingled with the thunder roiling in the coming blackness.

Big Mouth Southern Smokehouse Burger – $14.99

The charred black bones of the farmhouse coughed and hissed and exhaled into the early morning fog, ghosts of smoke swirling whitehot against the sun, contrast in defiance of God ordained. The sheriff rested his head on his hand and dug his foot into the soft patter of ash where all that had been lie transformed in heavenly splendor to witness the Holy wrath of all that this house had contained. Generations of violent echoes reverberated in these halls, tearing asunder those wretched institutions, consumed entire in final resolute compliance with the rich matrix which seeks to reckon all forces into balance.

California Turkey Club – $12.99

Starlight streaked the tarblack sky and set alight a new world order that rotated and remained just out of mortal reach. They worked night and day, carving the guts of the earth, giving up bits of gold like ransom, Promethean secrets plundered in service of Man’s purpose, hawk and serpent locked in eternal battle, without emotion yet determined to fight until death or victory overtakes and none remain divided from their origins, blood and sweat and tears the atonement of mortal blessures for which the wages are death.

Molten Chocolate Lava Cake – $6.95

There is no salvation in sweet indulgence, no deliverance in submission to the eternal beckoning which beleaguers all in time and temperance. Of tender mercies there can only be acceptance of that which forever hums of mystery and of all things lived and unlived to yearn equal for which all things require. The ultimate destination is the unknown and unknowable truths gleaned not from the blood of sinners but from saints innumerable casting forever that infinite redemption which all beings seek to achieve and whose purpose inures within one a meaning of self.