Harmattan

While the sun set she felt a longing so great that the fading light seemed to tremble with energy as if he must suddenly materialise and stand before her. As she gazed from the verandah the whole landscape seemed caught in a tension of expectancy. There was the road to the north, the road they had taken together, leading out of this grassland and into the desert. White and blue, the robes of homegoing men on bicycles gleamed phosphorescent. In one corner of her mind, far from the anguish, a lens-shutter clicked open and shut.