𝙎𝙢𝙤𝙠𝙚 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝙇𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧 - 𝙔𝘼𝙉𝘿𝙀𝙍𝙀 𝘾𝙊𝙒𝘽𝙊𝙔 𝙓 𝙍𝙀𝘼𝘿𝙀𝙍

𝙋𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚.

━━━

❝I give her all my love,

That's all I do, 

And if you saw my love,

You'd love her too,

I love her.❞ ━ ♫

━━━

Red dirt.

It surrounds us, Sandrange unforgiving in the town's heat and scorching air. 

Holding a population so tight, everyone knew of each other's lives without the hesitation to consider confidentiality. 

All, due to the mundane living of a sun-burnt town, filled with loveless marriages, saloon-drunken men, and the gossip from the ladies-of-the-night being the only bland form of entertainment, any drip of entertainment would be sucked dry or milked for weeks. 

And it was no surprise. 

To become willingly inebriated at one of the many saloons became more of a scheduled event rather than an outing, and the Sheriff was no exception. 

The Sheriff. 

The sheriff, being a man of both respect and authority, was known to be a placeholder for any and all news for the townspeople. 

From the gunslinging, to the ramped outlaws to even the smallest bar fights, he was both the placeholder and the messenger. 

With a black, leather hat lined by a bullet-band and the gleaming shine of a badge earned by the towns governmental voting, sweat to sheen his olive skin, he was both wanted and adorned for his adaptability and sociable nature.

That's how things are, and how things have always been. 

You respect your lawmen.

And the town did. 

Yet, the town has also held itself for keeping a reputation of both ignorance and hypocritical contradiction since the first morning it'd been founded. 

And that would be my curse. 

Tradition was favoured, and to break or distort that in any form was the most impertinent thing you could do. 

But what would be the punishment if you're simple existence did this without you're willing hand?

You would be shunned. 

And this was no secret; ignorance led to the avoiding eye, and the avoiding eye led to shunning.

And how did I contort the uniformity of the townspeople's repetitive weeks of existence under the seething heat and drunken-friday-nights?

they would ooze rumours of both my name, placed with the utterly specific adjectives, 'deranged', 'psychotic', and simply 'sick'. 

Although, not unfamiliar with the wording, it's both the eye's of their burning scowls and the words that spit like fire from their tongue's that become something you can never get used to. 

So, 

I never left my home. 

Day's turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months of voluntary isolation, hiding from the eyes that'd follow me, from the judgements and distaste to my name, and with every sickening nightmare and insomniac night, 

the routine had only been broken by the two knocks on my door, and the call of the Sheriff requesting to come inside. 

━━━