Chapter One

The earth here is rugged and warped in tangles of red clay and briar barbs. The ground is hard and stiff and only the strong of this place survive. These strong, these blades of gregarious gold, have been planted here year after year, as the cycles of the seasons play on in a harmonious struggle through the clear air. They sit in sheaths of gold separated into rows and columns and even more so arranged into sequestered squares that look as if to a patterned coloring of the earth by the gods. The gentle winds that roll in and out of this place create a dance between these parallel plots that turn the dry land into an ocean as seen in rhythmic waves of gold and troughs of silver.

The sun bears down on such a flat place. The earth stretches long and far to what seems to be the brim of the earthly cosmos. It is here where the day is longer than the night, and where one comes to look out and see for ages. The light that is provided from the mother of heat is glimpsed in angled beams that stretch all throughout the horizon. Light blinds the eyes, penetrates the soul, and ripens the heart. It is dry here. This place is not the place for an abundance of water but an abundance of strength. The strong can only survive here.

Ever so irregularly, large and flat puffs of white scoot through the day sky and offer a gentle relief from the beating down of the heat. These clouds are the travelers of the sky. Some moments they come in adventurous hordes seeking to dispell any notion of what daylight could be. Other times, single light whisps of white take to the sky as quiet as the wind may carry it; in the next moment they are gone. Also when the time requires it, these sky wanderers bring with them the tears of the gods. The earth floods. The dry ground knows not what to do with such a downpour. The air smells fresh. The sky turns grey. But soon after, the clouds scatter to different locations soon to die, and the ground recoils back into its bone-dry self as the sun sucks back any sort of life the rains had brought. The heat prevails.

Time rolls here as if in a steady rumble of a drum with no avail for rhythmic percussion. Time never increases speed here; she moves as a guttural force, deep and regular. Time just beats on steadily; no change, no difference. As the sun heatedly rises and falls through the day sky, the night sky opens up to a black canvas splintered by the iridescent white light of the all-too-immaculate stars. These small single dots do not shine; however, they twinkle ever so delicately. On and off, on and off. For if one conscentrates his eyes long enough one can see and hear his heart murmur to the same rhythm of a star's steady burn.

These are the days and the night of this location. A location that is passed by and passed through by many. Monotonous pragmatism is how most would deem the life in this epic place. Monotony breathes here while spontaneity lies dormant in this world. Don't be fooled, people do change here, and every so often the scenery changes; however this aforementioned change has been foreseen and foretold throughout the writes of history and that creates the irony for the idea that this supposed change was expected and really was never change but just the playfull twist of life.