If I were to describe my life with one word it would be this: repetition.
Every day, the same route, the same drills, the same steps, the same dust in the air, the same search the same disappointments.
I walked along the same beaten rock path, stone walls shooting jaggedly up, seemingly into oblivion. I must have walked in circles, along the same path for hours, glancing left to right, whip trailing uselessly behind me, stopping every so often to scratch myself behind my ear.
I hated the monotony of it all! Walking the same steps, making the same movements, carrying the same pocket of coins, lying precariously over the copper ring stuffed carelessly at the bottom. This was no life for me! I was a miner, not a dime a dozen security guard! Oh how I longed for the damp darkness of the mines! The firm strong feel of a pick in my hand, instead of this flimsy whip!
It wouldn't be all that bad if something, anything, happened here! In the mines there was always something going on! New veins of gems being uncovered. Never knowing when you may hit a bubble of volatile gas! The swing of the pick, the glint of the gems… Oh how I longed for it! And yet they stuck me on sentry duty, where nothing of note has happened since we found the old man in the foul smelling tent.
I turned a corner. There was a light on the ground, a sure sign of those show-off, flashlight toating, overgrown, dingo wannabees. Suddenly there was a yelp, a huge crash, and the light disappeared!
It took me a second or two to get my thoughts back in gear. Then I darted for the corner. Finally, some action!
I rounded the corner just in time to see a ringed tail whipping around the next corner. The flashlight guard was nowhere to be found. I sprinted for the corner of which I had seen the tail. I skidded around it, to see the back of the perpetrator. I chased after him. It was a raccoon of average height, wearing a blue shirt, a pouch strapped to his thigh, and a mask, Zorro style, wielding a cane with a metal head, curved to a point, in the shape of a question mark.
This guy was fast! He ran through canyons, over rivers, past cranes, all with the speed of a striking viper. Somehow I matched his every move. Finally we came to a dead end. Nowhere left to run, yet he did not break pace. He came to the wall, jumped onto a mining net. It acted like a trampoline, sending him sky rocketing up the wall.
No to be out done, I came to the wall, reared back, and leaped up the whole way. His jump seemed to take longer than mine, so we landed at almost the same time.
Not so useless after all, I thought to my self as I reared back with the whip, and let fly. The tip hit true, sending him flying. But he recovered fast. He sprang up and ran towards me, cane swinging wildly. A few of the shots hit, but I did not move an atoms width.
It seemed, however, that he was not interested in me. He darted past, and around another coloum of stone. I let out a howl and followed. However, upon rounding the corner, the cane wielding raccoon was nowhere to be found. I searched left, right, every direction he may have gone in, but he remained hidden.
The night remained uneventful after that, however when I arrived home I noticed that the coins, along with my copper ring, were missing.