|-JOHN DOE-|
"Be careful! Those rocks look like they're loose."
"Thanks. Toss me the rope?"
"What's with you and the canyons around here, anyways? Normally we stay on the trail, but ever since we stopped here you've been throwing yourself into one hole or another."
"Local legend. Apparently the bones of the earth here have some kind of spooky secret."
"What, you mean like those bits of Yavapai pottery we found a couple days back?"
"Better than that."
"Come on, Kat. You believe every tall tale some grizzled ranch hand tells you?"
"Only when it's about monsters."
The sky is blue. The sky is always blue in Idle, like the sun is always strong, and the stars are always beautiful. Some may say otherwise, but John Doe has been seeing the Idle sky for as long as he has been John Doe. He knows better than to question the beauty of the stars.
There is no wind in the mesquite stand tucked beneath the largest hill in Idle. There rarely is, but that does not stop it from being John Doe's second favorite place. He is very fond of mesquite trees: they're gnarled, sturdy, invasive little things who stretch to steal the light with every bough and leaf. Below the ground, enormous roots sink hungrily into the dirt, cracking stone and prying open the earth in their voracious hunt for moisture. Sometimes John Doe wonders how they do not tear themselves apart with every strangling, starving shoot, and he likes them all the more for the raw desire that keeps them whole.
John Doe sits against the trunk of the largest mesquite and looks at the town. The stand is not much higher than the buildings, relatively speaking, but Idle is not a large place. The little cluster of buildings that makes up the core of the town sit like the hub of a wheel, the state road piercing its heart like a javelin. Houses and housing complexes radiate in clusters of vinyl and adobe away from the core, each self-contained and self-absorbed and shimmering in the haze of heat. The sun is bright today, and the weather is too hot.
This is a lie. Too hot is a qualitative opinion which John Doe does not have, much like too bright or too quiet. Idle is John Doe's town, and its weather is his weather. Therefore, all of Idle's weather is good, just like the days are always beautiful, just like the stars are always bright. To say otherwise would be illogical.
There is sweat on John Doe's nose.
Perhaps it should have been anticipated: after all, John Doe is a man, and men sweat. Nonetheless, he remembers many things. He does not remember sweating in perfect weather. The sweat falls off his nose and stains the dusty ground. In seconds, it has evaporated.
The sun is bright. The weather is too hot. There is no weather in Idle which is too hot.
It is the middle of the day, and nothing moves in Idle. Under the fierce glare of the sun the citizens cower in their shade and air conditioned buildings. Even John Doe does not like to move at such times, instead choosing to sit in his second favorite place and watch the town and the creatures of the scrubland. Sometimes Barbara joins him, closing the shop and bringing her lunch with her for a couple of hours. She is much more fragile than he is, and considers sitting for more than an hour under the mesquites to be uncomfortable, even in perfect weather, which is all weather. It is a Thursday; usually Barbara comes on Thursdays.
Another bead of sweat falls from John Doe's nose to the soil. It too is absorbed and in moments evaporates. John Doe looks at the spot where it fell, and listens to the sound of the mesquites straining deeper and deeper for water. No insects hum in the air. The weather is too hot to fly, and everything hides in the shadow.
