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Out on the prairie there are places where you can see for three days. There is nothing to obstruct your view except for the occasional rock outcropping or the stunted tree that has managed to eke out a living, somehow defying the odds to remain one of the prairie’s only permanent citizens. The hills roll on forever and if you are standing on top of one of them the only thing taller than you are the huge clouds that sail slowly past like the prairie schooners that pushed through here on their way further west. The wagons left two ruts to show their passage towards dreams unrealized, the clouds leave only shadows.

Not all the dreamers went west. Some stayed and gambled that there was a living to be made here. Maybe to run cattle, there was plenty of grass, but there was also drought and tornadoes and fire. Some tried farming but Mother Nature was a cruel landlord and taught a hard lesson to those dry land farmers. There was rain but only when she allowed it, and very often she didn’t. Others, though not very many, brought their fortunes with them and bought their existence, building grand prairie mansions and becoming royalty here on the plains, ruling what they could while their fortunes lasted.

But the plains are nothing if not eternal. They have the stamina and constancy that humans can only dream of. You may affect change here for a while and even look like you’re successful but the prairie has patience, and sooner or later it will watch your dreams and desires fade away, and all traces of your passage will be as if they never happened. Sad for those who dreamed perhaps, but nothing at all to the winds and clouds that blow across the prairie.

For those of us living on a time-table that is measured in minutes and seconds all this change appears to be very gradual, lasting for what may be half a lifetime before you see a dream crumble back to earth. But if you stop and take a good long look you can occasionally see into the future, and what you see will be green grass waving in the wind and huge white clouds sailing overhead and perhaps a chance for the next dreamer to try his luck.