Chuy parked his truck at the head of the drive. Teresa's station wagon wasn't there. It took Chuy a moment to realize that the little sedan that belonged to Marcus, their house guest, was also missing, and that made him feel even lonelier. He got out of his truck and stood in the yard for a moment, looking up at the sky. Then he went around the house to the garden out back. He got down on one knee and began pulling weeds from between his peppers. His knees ached and that irritated him. He did not miss being young but he missed having a young man's body.

Chuy thought about his sister down in the city. He pictured her slouched before the TV set, chain-smoking Newports, dirty dishes piled in the sink and the air clogged with smoke and grease. He knew where Tomas would be, out in his car now that it was running smooth again, driving around with one of his friends, gentle awkward boys even more beaten-down than Tomas.

Chuy thought about the boy who had stolen his truck, the boy who had just died in prison. He was only a few years older than Tomas. He was slightly built, like Tomas. And now he was dead. Chuy wondered how it happened, if the boy ever knew he was about to die. He wondered if anyone grieved for the boy, or if the boy was as alone in this world as his death implied.

Then Chuy remembered when he caught the boy, how angry he was to see this punk driving his truck, how he pulled the boy from the cab, threw him down on the pavement, and stepped on his throat. Without Chuy, the boy would not have been in prison, and he would not be dead. Heat welled up in his belly. Chuy resented his part in the boy's death. He felt used by fate. His motions became abrupt. He stabbed his hand at the weeds and yanked them violently from the soil. Finally he stabbed too far and cracked the nail of his index finger against a stone. Blood oozed out from under it.

"¡La estupidez de cosas!" Chuy yelled.

It was something his grandmother used to say: "the stupidity of things". He hadn't heard the phrase since his grandmother passed away. He was surprised her words were still with him.

Chuy said it again, softer this time. In a few moments, his anger passed. All that remained was the cracked nail and the blood and dirt clotting on his finger. The wound needed to be cleaned. He staggered to his feet and turned toward the house. From far down the valley came thunder, rolling back and forth between the mountains to the east and the mesas to the west. The monsoons were not over. Chuy raised his face to the sky. He squinted at the high empty blue and could smell the rain in his mind.

Al Sim has lived in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York City, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Virginia. As a boy, he spent a year on Wake Island, a coral atoll in the North Pacific. He is currently preparing to move to Arizona. He has been employed as a short order cook, a plumber's helper, a finisher in a woodburning stove factory, a warehouseman, a handyman's helper, a deliveryman of medical equipment, a dishwasher and prep cook, a data entry clerk, a corporate banker, a technical writer, and a software interface designer. He is married and has two children.

"La Estupidez de Cosas" belongs to a series of stories, set in and around the fictional village of Los Huertos, that follow Chuy Sandoval, his wife Teresa, and his best friend Rico Lupe. The first three Los Huertos stories, "Chuy's Truck", "The Collie", and "No Mix", have also been published. In total, Mr Sim has had twenty stories accepted for publication. A story based on his Wake Island days, called "Get The Can", won a Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award and a Silver Rose Award.

Mr Sim is also a musician. He was the producer, engineer, and primary instrumentalist on "Dwell", the debut CD by The Pones (www.cdbaby.com/pones). He is currently working on a CD with his new band, The Pixelles (www.broadjam.com/pixelles).