Sun baked sands stretch westwards in eerie silence

Australia’s deserts baking in the midsummer sun

A lone man, rifle slung across his back, loped across the dunes

His haunted eyes stared into a distant past

A woman scorned, a father angered and a curse cast.

This is the tale of Andy Lee Jones

His steps betrayed none of the tiredness that dogged him

Sleep once a welcome respite had become a tortured asylum

Of nightmares and mindly aberrations

His trek had begun with one such dream, the first of many

A tribal witchdoctor danced across the infinite space of dreams

Invading Lee’s mind a dancing spectre of the past

In his strange tongue, strange even to those who speak it, he cast his spell

“I curse you pale tyrant, for you have wronged us

With your words and your actions you have cursed us

So I curse you wrongful invader

To wander each night as you wander each day

And wake ill rested to the sun’s morning rays

So Lee walked, and did sleep but had no rest

Following the steel needle of his inner compass

Following a cursed connection mile over mile

His path would not be free of obstacles

For his enemy could wield a great and subtle power

And would seek to discourage his pursuer

Dingoes howled in the distance, following Lee Jones

Across the baking sands and under the desert sun

Lee was not hungry even in this barren land

He was a wanderer and skilled in the means of survival

He was a man dying of thirst and exhaustion

Water was never plentiful in the desert,

And was harder not to succour in midsummer

Forces worked against him

Hiding away the waterholes and blocking up the groundwater

RATE THIS CHAPTER!

Click to View Author Guidance

It doesn't need to rhyme at all but try to keep it a poem and not a story. It's set in colonial Australia so be sure not to put any technology there that doesn't belong. Also don't worry about being politically correct or using period terms even if they may be insulting to one group or another.

updated May 11 '09 by Cottonwoodhead