All Around Cowboy

It smells of dust, tobacco, and something forgotten, like the hope that everything can still turn around. There is a crack in his voice, like on an old record, where every scratch sounds more honest than words. Once he was the first in the arena, but now he is just a man with tired hands and a memory that is still loud.

There is a special pride in the ability not to whine when life has taken away almost everything except the habit of moving on. He rolls down the highway like an old song - a little about defeat, a little about resilience, and still with a chorus about how tomorrow, maybe, everything will work out after all.