After the baby’s fever finally broke, the family was divided as to which effort had turned the tide. The grandmother’s rosary was mentioned. Beads not even round anymore from having been touched so many times. And the damp washcloths the mother had placed on the baby’s head, careful not to cover the whole face.

It was the grandfather’s idea to bathe him in mezcal, put the diaper back on, and wait for the cooling. He had offered this, and then had gone outside to sit in the dark. He said it was better to be cold if you had hopes.

The aunt went out to check on the grandfather but couldn’t bring herself to speak to him. Instead, she simply gazed up at the stars for a few moments. She wondered how it could be as people said, that the light from them is old.

Carlos, the oldest child at ten, remained silent throughout such talk. He listened, but stayed at the edges, appearing to be simply sullen in his usual way. But he had been the one to bring the armload of toys. Some dusty and smelling of rain. His thought had been that they might lure the baby back to playing again. He had been repeatedly asked about where he got them, but would only shrug. And the more he was asked, the more solid his silence became, until curiosity about the matter was abandoned. Sometimes he himself questioned his own actions, faintly nervous about them, until he also left such thoughts and went on to other things. On his way to school and back, he still passed the moldering memorial, set against a chain link fence, for the schoolboy caught in a crossfire. Dry flowers around small plates that had once held pan dulce, before birds broke them up and took the crumbs away. Solar lights that sometimes came on again for a few moments. And many stuffed toys, heads or legs shoved through fencing to hold them there.

The family moved on. The children grew. Carlos found a job in a sprawling city, and sometimes sent money back to his family. When he visited, talk of the past sometimes turned to the baby’s terrible fever. Even then, Carlos remained silent about the source of his gift. For all the days of his life, he was never to tell the story of it.

*Publisher’s Note:

Border Baby, Boquillas, Mexico (black-and-white photograph, 20x20 inches; 1995) is by American photographer James H. Evans (born 1954), whose work focuses on documenting the West Texas area. Border Baby was taken on assignment for Texas Monthly magazine, was later reprinted in Evans’ book Big Bend Pictures (University of Texas Press, 2003), and may be viewed online at Foltz Gallery (link retrieved on 13 April 2025):
https://foltzgallery.com/art/border-baby-boquillas-mexico-by-james-evans

A framed print of this haunting photograph hangs above a bookshelf in the Scroggins’ home in West Texas.

Daryl Scroggins

has taught creative writing and literature at The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of North Texas, and the Writer’s Garret, in Dallas. He now lives in Marfa, Texas with his wife, Cindy, whom he met 45 years ago.

Daryl is the author of a collection of flash literature, The Light I Want to Keep (MacQ, December 2024); The Scold’s Romance: A Story in Prose Poems (No. 3 in The Ravenna Triple Series; Ravenna Press, 2012); This Is Not the Way We Came In, a collection of flash fiction and a flash novel (Ravenna Press, 2008); Winter Investments: Stories (Trilobite Press, 2003); and Prairie Shapes: A Flash Novel (winner of the 2004 Robert J. DeMott Prose Contest).

His fictions, poems, and creative nonfictions have appeared in magazines and anthologies around the country and abroad, including *82 Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Blink-Ink, Carolina Quarterly, Chiron Review, Cutbank, Dime Show Review, Eastern Iowa Review, Egress, elimae, Fiction Southeast, Green Mountains Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, The Memory Palace: An Ekphrastic Anthology, New Flash Fiction Review, New York Tyrant, Northwest Review, Portland Review, Quarter After Eight, The Quarterly, Quick Fiction, and Third Wednesday, among others.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Vigilance, microfiction by Daryl Scroggins in MacQueen’s Quinterly, aka MacQ (Issue 25, September 2024); nominated by MacQ for The Pushcart Prize L

⚡ Suitcase Full of Clay: An Ekphrastic e-Collection by Scroggins in MacQ (Issue 18, April 2023)

⚡ Roadshow, microfiction in MacQ-15 (September 2022); one of three pieces by Scroggins selected as Finalists in “The Question of Questions” Ekphrastic Writing Challenge

⚡ Spring, microfiction in MacQ-12 (March 2022)

⚡ Writer Boy, microfiction in MacQ-4 (July 2020); nominated by MacQ for Best Microfiction 2021

⚡ Field Trips, flash fiction by Scroggins in KYSO Flash (Issue 12, Summer 2019)

⚡ New to School, microfiction in Eclectica (Jan/Feb 2018)

⚡ Two Fictions: “Almost Baptized” and “Against the Current” in New Flash Fiction Review (Issue 10, January 2018)

⚡ Eight Stories: A Mini-Chapbook by Daryl Scroggins at Web del Sol