A conversation between stress and anxiety (challenge by Erin)

A sunny day, heat rising gently from the stones of the earth, tempered by grassy patches.  Long stretches of rough, gently sloping hills in turn soften the otherwise oppressive shards of mountain shooting up to stab at the sky.

Two people are walking, one large, one small, from a distance their forms blend naturally into their environment, as the sun washes the colors of their brown-grey clothing into the surrounding terrain.

The larger of the two, a square-jawed woman who seems to be chewing a strip of bark in the back of her mouth, drags a sheet of metal behind her, harnessed to her by a multitude of ropes, wrapped partially in bulky canvas to prevent what would otherwise be a terrible racket as the metal scraped against the rock.

"We'll get there long before sunset," she says grimly, sweat slowly escaping the bandana on her brow.  "But we won't be done yet, not by a long-shot."

Her companion, a wiry, nervous man, slightly taller than her but far narrower and lighter and insubstantial in almost every respect, sways at her words, as if tossed gently by the wind.

"You're too confident," he says, head bobbing and glancing side-to-side like an ocean-tossed soccer ball, "There's still a chance they could find us.  And besides, this is wildcat territory.  Cougars.  Mountain lions.  Packs of bobcats."

"Cougars are mountain lions," she snaps, "and bobcats don't hunt in packs.  Why are you making this worse than it is?  We're already going to be up all night digging as it is."

"If we're lucky."

The woman spits, a fibrous, red-brown wad of something, but continues chewing.  "I don't have time for this.  You're the one who insisted on coming.  You want to be here?  Then help.  Grab the gear off my load.  I don't expect you can manage this whole panel, but at least you can take the shovels and picks."

The man veers abruptly away from her.  "No, no, no, you need me too much for that.  You don't want me to be weighed down.  Who'll warn you about mountain lions?  Carrying the shovels will be too distracting."

"I don't give a rat's ass about mountain lions!"  She grunts, plodding steadily onward under the strain of her load, "If some big cat bothers us I will walk right into it and take it down with me.  Then I'll get back up and keep walking, and all that's behind us will be a smear with whiskers."

"You're not that heavy."

"My boots are."

Silence now, but for the loud scrape of the sheet of metal dragging against the rock.

Eventually they reach one of the rocky outbursts, a textured wall with a long, vertical crease almost suggesting a cave.  With a final, mighty heave, the woman lifts the harness off her back, and leans the whole set-up against the stone wall.  With a great sigh, she sinks to the ground.

"Now we rest," she says, reaching with one hand to ungracefully empty her mouth of its contents, and with the other to pull her bandana over her eyes.  "We'll finish soon enough."

As she drifts off to sleep, rapidly and wondrously, the man ambles over to her rig, withdraws some tools: several blades and a piece of wood.  He quietly settles down to the ground near her, and, slowly but with spirit, begins carving and shaping the wood.  He smiles, noticing for the first time that he is excited for the trials to come.