*Eric*

"It's quite a stroke of luck how quickly we've hit water." My friend and neighbor, John, pauses to take a sip from our canteen, wiping his brow with the bottom of his shirt, clearing away a streak of dirt from his tan skin.

"T'was no luck about it," I argue. "I spent many a midafternoon calculating the likely trajectory of the underground creek before I raised a single cornerstone."

"I jest," he admits. "No one has the forethought of such matters quite like ...