At sunset the sky turned black in a circle over the center of the village. People came out of their homes into the streets, and stood on their balconies staring at the great, swirling blackness hovering over the square. The air became thick and heavy, and filled with a low throbbing hum that caused fillings to tingle and the little hairs on the arms and neck to stand on end.

People began to go insane. At the bakery, some of the women fell to their knees while others tore off their dresses and writhed on the floor. At the barber shop some of the men prayed out loud and others howled like dogs and pissed themselves. Some people ran about on all fours and some didn’t.

At the stroke of midnight the hole in the sky turned bright, and fiery tendrils dripped purposefully from its edges into the streets. A great voice thundered in a language no one understood, and some people died of fright. The fire spread out through the village and everyone it touched was burned to ashes in an eyeblink. Everyone in the village — men, women, children, pets — was incinerated by the strange fire except a homeless drunkard and his dog, who was named Perón.

The drunkard and his dog, Perón, wandered aimlessly through the empty streets for hours. Eventually, after drinking many bottles of Port wine from the tendería, the drunkard began to believe something terrible had happened to the village. He repeatedly observed a white owl flying into and out of the houses, from balcony to balcony. He and Perón stole a car and drove along the road to Cambria, sixteen miles of twisting, ill-maintained blacktop.

Along the way there were giant bats, and armadillos squashed in the road, and even a walking saguaro cactus; It took them all night to get to the town.

No one in Cambria believed the drunkard’s story. Many of the men laughed at him and his piss-stained pants and at his mangy dog, Perón. But later in the morning some men went to the village and returned white-faced, bearing a pair of womens panties half burned from the fire, whispering of the emptiness, the silence, the black scars in the shapes of men and women that covered the streets and sidewalks of the little village. And then no one doubted the drunkard anymore.

Panic ensued in Cambria. Women wrote to their lovers in other cities to warn them of the impending Judgment. Men drank heavily and took down their pistols and rifles and shotguns, and made bonfires in the streets and stared at the sky.

That night no one slept a wink, and even Perón became nervous.

Two days passed and finally the townspeople began to think they had been mad to believe in a drunkard and a dog. But on the second night the sky became dark as a whirling sea of dung, and the frightening circle appeared, this time over the church.

Men and women tore the clothes from their bodies and mated like wild animals in the gutters. Children ripped their own parents to shreds with their fingernails. Young virgins threw themselves upon the bonfires screaming obscenities and benedictions and prayers.

The fire crackled and dripped from the rim as before. The fire squirreled its way through all the nooks and crannies of Cambria and every body it touched was instantly incinerated.

This time the only one who was left was Perón, who found he could speak, although he did not know what to say or who he should talk to. So Perón sat on the steps of the church to wait for a sign.

Perón waited for days until he was nearly dead from thirst. On the third day three drunken miners arrived from nearby Mantijera. They wandered the streets shouting and laughing. They took money and liquor from the empty shops  and pissed on the black shadows of the townspeople, which they found in every avenue.

And when they passed by the church they saw Perón.

One of the men threw a rock at Perón and missed.

“What are you doing here, stupid dog? Where are all the women?“
“We have been in the mines for twenty days!“
“Come here, little bitch. Let me tickle you!”

Perón recognized the sign at once, and he stood up and spoke.

“The Day of Judgment is at hand,” Perón said. “Lay down your hopes. Abandon your dreams. Prepare for your final annihilation. Your God has no fear, and he demands sacrifice. You will all be consumed.”

The miners, who had never seen a talking dog before, laughed and hooted. A dog who was a preacher! It was the funniest thing in the world! They chased Perón around and around the church hollering and howling, until finally they caught him and beat him to death with an empty tequila bottle.

That night, the circle appeared over Mantijera, small but growing.

Growing.

This place is our flesh, our bones, our blood;
this flash of light our souls’ fleeting histories
written in a blinding script.

This plain expanse of tall grass, this whispering:
This is our air. This sound, the wind, our emptiness.
This voice is ours, calling us back, this mystery:

Redemption in a breeze;
love a fire in rolling hills;
rapture in a crack of thunder;
repose in sheets of summer rain.

This touch is ours, this baptism:
The stones cry out our names
and wait for an answer.