The Village of Skye

      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.