Darkening. Dusky. An old dirt road stood used and upturned. The once-mud had now resigned itself to sit as a strange duck, devoid of almost all water. The track was worn and misplaced after a long day of workers slaving around it. Men. In old battered checkered shirts in wore shades of red, white and blue with scruffy matching neckties and brown old boots. Tools in hand.
The path is almost silent now.
Only a weary man trudged forth upon a small bay pony. Huge eyes. Filled with longing. Hungry. Dare one say hope? No, one dare not speak such an utterance here. He rides half asleep, almost bend double. An old knapsack in a decaying crimson shade hung at the horse's black tail, swaying in the sand filled wind. Above it, a small bedroll in midnight blue slept coiled as a spring. The man himself was young. Very young. Too young. His light brown locks hung in waves partially obscuring his of electric blue. Wishful. Almost joyous. Though tired. Tired beyond belief. The horse came to a halt just preceding the inn. Burgundy and wooden in the darkening light. His tools, he decanted from his pony as he led it to the shallow wooden trough of water standing just ahead.
The sky behind was a blur of saffron and yellow and an angry red. Starless. Cold. Merciless. Dark storm clouds gathered like ash, whispers in the sunset. Silhouetted against it, a monstrous towering structure of wood and metal reaching high to the heavens; as yet uncompleted, it appears. A railway. The track at least. This is what the workers had been slaving for. What the men had given their love and their life and their hope to. Beneath all this, a large building ins perfect condition. Fairy new. The only thing well cared for in Jericho. A bank.
But at what cost?