The sign still says Open Bar. The sign still promises Cold Beer. The bar itself is buried to its knees in salt and sand, the chairs askew, the string lights strung between poles that lean at angles suggesting long argument with the wind. Nobody is coming. The bartender left some time ago, and the desert has been slowly accepting delivery ever since.
This is the Salton Sea again — that great California elegy — where optimism came to build resorts and the water came to recede and the two have been negotiating the terms of surrender ever since. The Sky Inn II implies a Sky Inn I, which implies a whole genealogy of hope, each iteration certain it had solved what the previous version could not.
What stops the heart is the still. The bar is still standing. The sign is still legible. The chairs still face inward, as though expecting someone to sit down, order something cold, watch the sun drop into a sea that barely exists anymore. Last call is the most human announcement ever invented — the acknowledgment that the night must end, that warmth and company are temporary, that the lights will come up eventually and reveal everything.
Here, the lights never came up. The night just became morning, and then years, and then this.
This is a limited edition fine art giclée print produced with archival-grade inks on premium Somerset Velvet fine art paper and mounted on a black wood frame. Image Size: 12 x 24 inches. Framed Print Size: 17 x 29 inches.
