a story

Today I was asked by a friend to tell a story. I have no idea why. And I have no idea what I'm about to write. Here goes....

I saw the dust first. It rose in a thin column behind the stranger, filtered the light of the western sun. He meandered more than truly walking, seemed like, staring at nothing or his sandaled feet. He wandered my dry, gravelly path, eastbound, and when his foot brushed a withered blade of grass or gnarled bush he just kept on, unfazed, like walking on and off the path were all the same.

I've been watching him for more than an hour from my porch. Few know this path at all, out here in these near-desert plains. I like it here, it's home. Just nobody seems to understand that. Took him an hour from bein' a spec on the horizon to bein' right here in front of my house. Only man I've seen for neigh on three weeks. He won't even lift his head. I want to say hello, but I can't. Dry throat.

I could still see him, barely, when the twilight turned the world gray. And then it was black, and the stranger was gone.