Marigold knew, deep in her heart, that her mysterious son had come to her from a far away land. One leaving him a legacy of solitary thoughts, a life shunned underground, and as alone as the desert night. the one that silently carried the cross Christ left behind. Gassett felt the cold winds whip around his innocence, lash at his pristine life, and squarely paste its barren landscape, complete with tumbleweeds, around his forming body.

Bearing the arid branding of his unusual beginning, Marigold held her young infant as nothing more than a gift from God, a love full of wonderment. She kissed the heart of her infant many times to ensure it lasted forever, and that it would never be broken. During their time together, Marigold raised her boy, as any mother would, and never acknowledged his bone-dry skin, patchy hair, his overall unusual look. Sitting below hair, wiry and fully-grown into his equally brown beard, their colors set a course for the eyes to go up the chin towards the top tussle of brown hair, separated only by two large blue eyes. To match his enlarged eyes, Gassett boasted an unusually wide girth. Overly thick fingers swelled out of his large hands, his feet matched, along with his eyelids and roundly extended perpetually rosy cheeks. He resembled an ogre. A desolate one, he would whisper.

When Gassett whispered those words, he meant his heart, not his ogre like looks, which he hid, behind a worn brown cardigan. It flowed over his blooming black pants made of gunnysack, and dyed by his own hand. A thick, woven white shirt tucked in just above his fly fit nicely inside the robe cardigan. This was Gassett Punchinello, a man of small stature, and a desolate heart.

The lush blue sky and emerald green Earth had never held anything for Gassett. He knew it better than anyone did – he had been the one chosen to live the God-awful life. Why the world had been so callous, Gassett did not know. It was always confusing for Gassett, a real conflict, something he could never fathom. Because deep in his desolate heart, Gassett thought of this life, even with the cross he bore, to be as beautiful as a stunning bouquet of fragrant magnolias thrown into the cool air by a blushing bride shielding herself against the pelting rice, smiling larger than life.