A brief visitation

They came out of the desert - hard men with no trace of the villagers' softness about them. The sand and the unrelenting sun had scoured any excess flesh from their bones and their gaze seemed capable of seeing through a man's deceptions, laying bare his dreams and his fears and his lies. The women of that place drew their robes more closely about them and fell silent as the travellers passed - thinking of old stories and new feelings. The smallest children followed the men to the edge of the village where, uncertain, they stopped. In silence, the men walked towards the horizon and, when the wind rose up, they were lost in a cloud of sand which obscured their tracks, and it was as if they had never been there.