Lisa Swope Mitchell, 'Rena in the Desert' (2020)
Parched in the desert, Rena stumbles upon an automated motel, apparently empty apart from a little girl. It is an elegant slice of near future Americana with the feel of a haunted house story, or a fable, perhaps an island in The Odyssey or one of those enchanted castles from the Matter of Britain. There is a fair bit of worldbuilding woven in: ecological and economic catastrophe, crumbling rule of law. And there is something interesting going on to do with English, Spanish, labour, automation, and the nuclear family: Although homeless and arguably an internally displaced person, Rena is also a sort of deranged figure of privilege, a gun-wielding consumer whose collapsed US dollars and high school Spanish somehow is able to command, at least for a few hours, the tawdry dream of a domestic space where somebody else or something else does all your cooking and cleaning.
Here Rena checks in:
“You have selected: one single room. For: one night,” affirmed the AutoMotel. A slot on the desk blinked red. “Please insert cash or card to select your currency.”
Rena expected the bills to come spitting back at her, but the AutoMotel sucked them in and informed her of the increasing total. At eighty-nine, another slot lit green, and a card popped out. The girl pounced on it, then slid it ceremonially across the desk.
“Your room is: 2B,” the AutoMotel said. “Please take your keycard.”
Rena stared. Something wasn’t right. Little girls did not run motels alone—not even an automated system like this one—little girls did not face unknown travelers alone, and they sure as shit didn’t control large supplies of fresh water, currently one of the more valuable commodities in this part of the North American continent. Not by themselves. And even if they did, they wouldn’t sell that water, or anything else, for paper money issued by a failing government with no authority in this region. Hell, even in Chicago the black market ran on CAD. Somewhere, there must be somebody else. A mother or father, hiding, waiting to catch her off guard.
Alarm bells should have been jangling down her spine, sirens blaring through her subconscious, but somehow all was quiet. She took the keycard.
