Four Corners Monument, Teec Nos Pos. Visited on June 21, 2022.
At the Four Corners Monument, the Engineer waits in line with his lover. They wait for their turn to take a photo at the intersection of the Four Borders. It is 1:50 p.m. on a Tuesday. The Engineer has a very important meeting at 2:00 p.m. It doesn’t matter that he’s on vacation. His supervisors and clients expect him to join the call.
The moment the Engineer and his lover turned off the highway, the waiting began. First, they sat in a line of cars for 20 minutes, edging closer to the entrance ever so slowly. Finally, they paid and parked and made their way by foot to the monument, where the line stretched ever so long. The Engineer didn’t think the line would be so long on a Tuesday. He didn’t anticipate that families would stand at the intersection of borders for 15 minutes at a time and take dozens of photos of each other, alone and together.
He looks around, looks at his phone, looks at the sky, looks at phone, pockets the phone, looks at the family in the circle that encompasses the borders. He counts them – one, two, three, four, five. A family of five.
The Engineer looks at his lover. “There are 31 combinations of photos they could take,” he says, “and for any given grouping they could take a million different photos. And that’s just one family.”
His lover won’t look at him. She watches the family take their photos. She looks at her phone. She looks at the sky
“Infinite fucking photos,” he says.
Then he counts out loud each time they take a photo, and he’s not wrong. The parents pose individually. Then they pose with each other. They pose with the children.
Then each parent poses individually with the little boy, the little girl, and the teenage girl. Then with the little boy and the little girl. Then with the little boy and the teenage girl. Then with the little girl and the teenage girl. And so on.
Then the children pose together without the parents. All three together. Then the little boy and the little girl. The little boy and the teenage girl. And so on.
Then the children pose by themselves. But each child poses three different ways during their solo shots, so the number of photos does in fact exceed the number of possible groupings.
The teenage girl is a starfish. The teenage girl crosses her legs and presses her hands together like the Buddha. The teenage girl takes a selfie of herself while the parents take her photo.
The little girl does a split. The little girl jumps and strikes a pose like Brian Fantana mid-air. The little girl crosses her legs and presses her hands together like the Buddha.
The little boy waves. The little boy does a handstand. The little boy is a starfish.
It’s 2:05 p.m.
The Engineer looks at his lover, says “I’ve got no fucking bars.”
His lover looks at him. Then she punches him in the chest as hard as she can, which is hard enough to surprise but not physically hurt him.
She screams, “Shut the fuck up!”
She screams, “Fucking shut the fuck up!”
When he reaches for her, she screams FUCKING SHUT THE FUCKING FUCK UP, YOU FUCKING PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT.
And you know what?
Everyone in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah hears her scream.
That’s how loud she screams.