I feel like this encapsulates the end of the year pretty well. ...

I feel like this encapsulates the end of the year pretty well.  And feelings going into the next one.

PAGE 1

Panel
1:  I am lying in bed awake.

CAPTION:  It’s
the day after Christmas, and I am anxious.  It’s
probably just a culmination of everything this year has been.  Maybe
it’s money.  It
might be money.

Panel
2:  The shot moves in closer to show me slightly more anxious as I listen to the radio in the distance.

RADIO:  ‘Will
Trump veto the new stimulus bill?’

 CAPTION:  Most
pressingly, it’s money.

PAGE 2

Panel
1:  A close up of me putting on my tennis shoes.

CAPTION:  I
promised myself I’d drive out to the Superstition’s today.  To take a moment and be quiet by myself.  It’s little treat, becoming temporarily
unavailable.

Panel
2:  An illustration of the Superstition Mountains.

CAPTION:  If you
were going to disappear, the Superstition Mountains are a good place to do it.

Panel
3:  An illustration of a bearded miner with desert in the background.

CAPTION:  The
mountains are most famously the home of the lost Dutchman’s mine.  According to legend, a German miner named
Jacob Waltz discovered a vein of gold in the mountains.

Panel
4:  The miner is shown, swinging a shovel back, preparing to hit another miner in the head.

CAPTION:  Some
think he even killed for it.

PAGE 3

Panel
1:  A well worn tombstone.

CAPTION:  But he
wouldn’t reveal the location until his deathbed years later, and only then to
his caretaker Julia Thomas.

Panel 2:  Another shot of the mountains.

CAPTION:  But
she never found it.

Panel 3:  A hiker is shown with a metal detector on one of the mountain trails.

CAPTION:  And thousands
have looked for it.  Continue to look for it.  Of any
of the mines found since, none have been verified as the ‘Lost Dutchman’s.’

PAGE 4

Panel
1:  I hike alone along the trail.

CAPTION:  But
there are other stories here.  The
Apache’s believed there was a hole here that led to the underworld.  And their history here is bloody.  Pima
Indians reported strange sounds, and mysterious deaths.  Some
still see strange lights in the sky.  And
always, always, always hikers go missing.

PAGE 5

Panel
1:  I walk and talk through my problems.

CAPTION:  I can
see the allure in disappearing away from a year that has left me so jaded and
sad and overwrought.

ME:  It’s not even like I don’t have the money.  I just reached the transaction limits.

Panel
2:  I crawl into my car.

CAPTION:  The
trick is making such a disappearance temporary.

ME:  I
have an hour before I have to get back.
I’ll just take a little nap.

Panel
3:  I jolt awake in the car.

CAPTION:  40
minutes later.

ME:  I
need to get kitty litter.

Panel
4:  I stand at the entrance of my home, carrying a box of kitty litter.  I am looking down at my cat, who waits for me.

CAPTION:  You
have to find something small to come back for.

ME:  Hey
there.

Panel
5:  I lie in bed with my cat.

CAPTION:  Even
if it’s only hope.

ME:  I can get by for at least one more week.