Desert

From the first minute of their lives, the men belonged to the boundless open spaces, to the sand, to the thistles, the snakes, the rats, and especially to the wind, for that was their true family. The little girls with copper hair grew up, learned the endless motions of life. They had no mirror other than the fascinating stretches of gypsum plains under the pure blue sky. The boys learned to walk, talk, hunt, and fight simply to learn how to die on the sand.