The only sight of entrance into the village of Skye was the main
gate. From there, one could see the main street, lined on either side
with shops. All of the buildings were made one story, and squat, flat
roofs and made of sand brick, a mixture that was mostly solidified
forms of the dunes themselves. Because of this, the buildings blended
into the sand that had hardened under the feet of the villagers and
their livestock over the centuries to form the village's roads. It
blended in with the dunes that abutted the wall on the north side,
always one step away from consuming the town if not for the Watchers
going out to move the sands using the Ancient Way. It blended with
the expanse of sand that one could see in all directions, making the
village seem like a pearl lost in a sea of nearly white waves. If one
looked hard enough, he could see the gleam of sunlight off of metal
findings that had long been polished by sand and wind into a sharp
shine, or off the windows made of thick, dust streaked glass. Within
the walls of the village, where the cliffs were not imposing their
shadow, nor the dunes threatening to overtake the people, you could
see side streets branching off the main street, where homes and shops
began to take shape. The sand brick buildings had their own
individual touches. Signs above shop doors, desert flowers growing in
window boxes, laundry lines hung for the rare days without sand
storms.
The streets were
narrow in places, making artificial shadows within the blazing,
ceaseless sunlight, however, in other places, they were wide enough
for two carts to pass side by side. Throughout the village, in places
where the roads intersected, there would be the occasional water
well. Guarded and precious beyond imagining, the well houses were
made of the strongest brick, and what little stone could be found.
Inside was the smell and soothing feeling of dampness and cool shade.
It created the pervasive feeling that one was in a haven of life, a
place where all things began and ended. The wells were each nearly a
sacred place. People timed their lives by when they went to the wells
for water. They met their friends there, and had long conversations
while waiting in line, or after having pulled up water and covered
their buckets with cloth to keep it from evaporating.
The village was
blessed, it was said, by water hidden under the ground. It allowed
for the food caves that were another blessing. No one knew quite how
the village found them, or the water under their feet, but they
certainly knew they were there now. Inside the vast cliffs were long
expanses of open caverns with openings carefully cut into the ceiling
to allow just enough sunlight in to grow food, but not enough to kill
it. Here, the water had been brought with diligence and consistence
until things would grow and as they did the livestock were fed. This,
in turn, created soil to mix with the sand, and allowed for the
raising of chickens, which added even more soil, and through a
process spanning back as long as anyone in the village new, the
people had managed to scratch out the existence of food for the
village within the caverns.
In this way, the
people lived for centuries, losing their origins in the folds of time
around them. Losing their knowledge of the past, allowing them to be
consumed with the smell of the dust in the air that permeated
everything. Or the sight of the sun setting on the dunes creating
streaks of gold, red, purple, and pink before allowing the sky to
return to the blackness that revealed nightfall. The past was lost in
the feeling of the grit on everything, the relief of water to wash
once a week, the taste of the dirt in their food and water, and the
occasional smells of desert flowers. The day to day survival was
infused with the sweat of the people and the dusty musk of the
animals. Those who lived here were the desert. And for some reason
they lived well, and no one thought to question why.
Here, the wind and
sand shaped creation. It was a never ending torment of particles
against whatever the particles met that seemed to create something
from an original form that was much softer, much less efficient, and
didn't know it had previously been flawed. Once one was in the dunes,
immersed in the sand and the village, they became shaped. Scoured
clean of their vulnerabilities and made bare of all things that were
anything other than essential. People used smaller sentences, drank
less water, tended only to what tasks they needed. It was land of
minimalism under the heat and glaring sun. The desert shaped the man,
not the other way around, and all things that came to the village
were recreated in the village's image, and those born there were born
into the shadow of what the village had already created. Stark
landscapes, brutal sand storms, crisp mornings and frigid nights were
the instruments of that transformation, and there was no way to fight
it. The people of the village knew this, and while they might not
embrace it, there was a sense of inevitability that hung in the air
like a cloud of smoke or dust. The knowledge settled on everything,
infusing the idea into all it touched, coating it, and permeating all
that was left out. This was the truth that simply was. It was the
never spoken, but always known undercurrent of the people in the
village.
