Desert Travellers

A cargo of extended families are loaded into an old, sun bleached, 1950’s Ford Falcon pick-up. It passes slowly, grumbly, in a cloud of belched sooty reek, and an explosive horn and a sea of hands, as it tacks, eventually tracking it’s way to our side of the road. It must be Sunday, they’re off to…., well it could be anywhere. Only there doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice of anywheres out here. The road is straight, the horizon lost to a haze and an optical ocean. Some five minutes later I look up, look along the road, the pick-up is still there. Are they five miles or five years away? It makes little difference. Time seems like a concept for cities. Eventually, slowly they are absorbed by the road, dissolved by the light, consumed by the horizon. We’re on our own again.