Under the Sinister Sunlight

(I'm still trying to get back into the habit of writing everyday. Being home again is nice, but it comes with a lot more distractions than I was hoping. Anyways, here's my response to today's prompt over at Creative Copy Challenge. The challenge words are found in bold. Give CCC a visit. It's a fun little place to hang out for a few minutes on Mondays and Thursdays.)

Under the sinister sunlight in the American southwest, a man scoured the desert ruins in hoping of finding something, anything, which would give proof of them being there. He had heard the natives believed in an intelligence not of this world. If they hadn't come from here, where, then, were they from? What message were they trying to leave behind? Why did they choose to come here, to this purgatory on Earth? One didn't have to go far to find a true paradise. Maybe they were searching for some balance. Perhaps they wanted to show the natives they could live here as well. All that was left here now were the remains of the natives and the influence of these ghost-people who were not people. If only he could find something covered by time which would trace back to them. But that is the greatest tragedy of all. Time was his enemy. She covered and decayed what previous generations have left for us. It was as if time held a grudge against him for living only in the present, for she lived in the past and future as well. But as an archeologist, he had learned to see through time how these people had themselves lived in their own present. It had become somewhat of an art for him. It taught him many things. What this and that finding were used for. What that drawing signified. Even why they used certain pottery more than others. However, his greatest lesson through time is this: If anything should survive generation to generation, it will be enduring love. Technology and religion get lost in time, but love of family and friends is timeless.