Part 1: A Walk Through The Desert

                    The sun beat down upon his neck like a beam  of heat trying to bore him into the ground. John’s clothes clung to him like a second skin.  His canteen had went empty three days after the horse died. He had stumbled slowly forward since then, he could not recall how long ago that was, for his mind was to filled with his present task.  He stared straight ahead into the edge of the horizon for any sign of life, and had found none. All he could see was the heat sizzling the ground as if it were being cooked.  But he knew he must keep going. 

                      It’s funny how one argument can manifest into this, he pondered while Still heading upon through the vast Arizona Desert. He told his father how he intended to go to California to the Gold Rush. His father had told him he was being a foolish child and needed to stay to take over the farm one day. ” I will not be a pig farmer”, he had screamed, before running away to his favorite spot at the creek to pout.  Who were they to tell him what to do?? He was 17 and  he was a man now! he thought as he skipped rocks down the side of the creeks banks. He would show them all. He would go to California, and make his riches. When he returned, he would show them how sorry they would be. He was not gonna be a pig farmer no matter what happened ,that was for sure.

                      His arm had grown tired from pitching rocks for so long as he plotted his great plans of mining gold from the great mountains of the west. He layed down and rested his head on a small fallen tree, and began to cloud gaze. He had always loved to do that since he was a child. He had seen many shapes in the clouds from time to time. He had always enjoyed those times of cloud gazing.  It was like his retreat from the miserable farm around him. The farm that his father was trying to chain him to.