text: There was a ranch in northern Idaho owned by the Desperación family. Frederick, and Julie inherited the ranch and lived in the large mansion at the center of the estate. Their niece, Elizabeth, lived in a shack beneath a large oak tree on the outskirts of the property. She didn’t mind this arrangement, in fact, she preferred it. She preferred the rolling meadows of wildflowers speckled by dashing young pine saplings than the manicured pasture of her family’s cattle whose horrid stench perished any hope of Elizabeth carrying on the family tradition. She steered clear of the pasture, barn and mansion. She felt no desire to be near them. She preferred it this way. Her aunt and uncle preferred it as well. Elizabeth, bless her soul, was a terrible worker. She couldn’t help but stare at the sky beyond the mountains, listening to the sounds of the sea. She was, as her aunt and uncle described, “a chronic idealist prone to willful forgetfulness, and an especially horrid conversationalist when it came to matters of the physical world.” They wondered how they could be related to someone as distant as Elizabeth. They spread barely hidden rumors about her to the workers, and secretly plotted her removal from the family will. Elizabeth knew these things but didn’t mind. They left her alone, and she them. She preferred it this way. All was peaceful and content in Elizabeth’s life. She would wake with the sun, or the lunch bell, or whenever she chose. No one cared when she did. No one bothered Elizabeth. She would don whatever clothes were cleanest and sink into buttery dollops of sunflowers melting in the sun, inhaling their pasty scent as she had for years on end, until she felt the desire to clear the imaginary weeds from vainly measured pine saplings that haven’t grown for years and won’t grow for years. Elizabeth was alone with her thoughts, as she always was. The ground absorbed her tears and the wind silenced her cries. She was alone, piteously alone, and there was only one thing in her life that banished the joy of death, her cousin Oliver. Elizabeth thought that with a name as whimsical as Oliver, the young man behind it must be equally so, but it wasn’t so. Oliver was a stern man, aged before his time by spending sunny days huddled within the shadow of religious doctrine. He desired nothing more than to be a humble clergyman in the church and had overcome the obstacles of pride and wealth to do so. He became a paragon of virtue, his heart a great outpouring of love and affection for all who knew him. He was a flawless man, an exemplar of his faith, save for one mortality, his love for his cousin Elizabeth, an overwhelming force only counter-acted only by her equal love for him. No one knew that Oliver was to arrive at the ranch that day. Elizabeth lay on a large rock watching two dragonflies making love in the air, pretending to hear the cry of the eagles over those in her head. Her aunt and uncle lounged in their new gazebo, sipping iced cocktails out of crystal goblets, thinking about how grateful they were to have such well-behaved cattle, such amiable weather, such excellent finances, such reasonable politicians, and how Elizabeth couldn’t mess any of it up. Just as Oliver’s car parked at the edge of the family property, they had each settled into the quiet contentment of their private agonies. Oliver rubbed his calloused hands over the letter tightly clutched to his chest. He approached his parents without looking up and mutely placed the letter on his father’s overflowing lap. They take dainty sips from their goblets and inquire to the whereabouts of his priestly vestments. He ignores their mordant questions with a shrug of his drooped shoulders and walks into the open fields while his parents indignantly wave their pink hands for his attention. After satisfying themselves with meager effort, they address the letter simply titled, “This letter explains everything.” They open it and wish they hadn’t. Suddenly the air becomes too hot, the cattle too unruly, the finances too unstable, the politicians too unreliable. They signal the servant to renew their glasses and complain about their lives into the folds of each other’s throats. Elizabeth had not heard any of this. Her favored paralytic state deadened her to the undesirable world around her. She felt today was a day of great despair, as all days were. The sky sank heavily on her sun-burned shoulders and razor-sharp flower pedals maimed her bare legs. Another day would pass without Oliver. She felt no hope for today, and no chance for tomorrow until she heard his voice say... “Elizabeth?” She sprang from the ground with joyous tears carelessly flooding her adolescent eyes. She ran to her cousin and threw her arms around his neck, determined not to let him go, determined to tell him how much she missed him, determined to tell him how much she loves him, determined to tell him that a life spent with him is greater than any life spent without him, determined to kiss him until her body fails her, determined to love him until the world ends. “My lover is pregnant, and I am to marry her. This is goodbye.” As it did then. Elizabeth fell away from her one true love. Her opened mouth wailed unadulterated anguish. She cursed the God that birthed her love for a life without her, the God that stole his life from her so that he could steal it back for another woman, the God that they worshipped and led neither to happiness, damning the God that took Oliver away, damning the God that took Oliver away. “Oliver!” He’d already walked away, sparing no comfort or attention to the crippled girl in the open field, blind to her memory in his mind, deaf to her strangled cries of love. He ignored his parent’s desperate questions and drunken bargaining and drove back to his lover whom he eventually marries and fathers two children who hate his drunken abuse and finally cast him out of their home after his dalliance with a minor. Elizabeth remained on the ranch to bear the memory of her love as reminders of her worthlessness, her hopelessness, her uselessness. It wasn’t until three days after she hung herself that her aunt found her while looking for a lost lamb.