That was the second desert I had ever seen in my life, the scene of a violent storm that welled inside me, a brutal battle that waged in my mind, determining once and for all what was the shittiest place to be. On one hand, this desert didn’t have sand, and that was always a plus to be considered. On the other hand, it was still cold and still shitty, except now there was wind too and I used to think the wind and I were bros but fuck that mess if it means cold gets to toddle around with us third-wheelin’ n’ shit. I did not sign up for that.

So anyway, yeah. Pa’s herd wasn’t up here, which probably meant I missed it. Figures. He would put his herd at the most a) awful place on earth that’s b)the most incredibly difficult to access. The snow swirled around me and I swear the wind was chuckling at me, or maybe it was Pa again, whatever insubstantial ghost-Pa that happened to haunt me at that particular moment. That happened sometimes. Ghost-Pa would just chill somewhere above and behind me, laughing at me and whatever fucked up situation I found myself in—and no it wasn’t all in my head, you can just shut up, gosh. Shit man. I was struggling.

I needed to fight something.

But there was literally nothing, not even a tree to break the wind or a body to try and pummel. Just me and this empty wilderness pretty much made up of nothing but shrubs and freezing. I sort of trudged my way onward, keeping north, knowing it was stupid of me to try and penetrate a place where I didn’t know where I was going. Five-hundred paces, I told myself, gritting my teeth against the bitter wind whipping at the tender still-healing skin of my face (shit man, isn’t it spring?!). Five-hundred paces. I’d go five-hundred paces and if I hadn’t found anything by then, I’d let myself turn around.

One….
Two….
Three….
This is really shit-ty

….

One-hundred-fifty-six…
One-hundred fifty-seven…
One-hudred-fifty…..what?

I stopped in my tracks, my eyes watering as the wind slapped them—but I was sure I saw something up ahead of me. No--someone, it was a person and not a snow-horse, like I thought originally. Wait…was it a person? Because it was freezing and the wind was merciless and they were just…

…standing there?

“Hey!” I said, springing into a spry trot to catch up with them. “HEY!” I called louder, trying to get their attention, see if they were alive, anything. I wouldn’t have normally cared, but it was alarming, y’know? I mean, with the wind and the cold and everything, I didn’t really have any clue what I was walking into—what sort of frozen hell I was wandering towards.





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