Many years ago I was on a train travelling through the Spanish desert when the woman opposite me asked if I would open the window<\/p>\n
As soon as I did so she expressed her excess milk from the train<\/p>\n
I thought little of it until I travelled back through the desert some weeks later<\/p>\n
Where there had only been parched sand there were now flowers of many colours<\/p>\n
The train slowed down as it passed through the rainbow desert and I took the opportunity to jump from the train unnoticed<\/p>\n
Flowers grew in abundance in all directions<\/p>\n
The blue ones grew in the shadow of the hills whilst the red and orange flowers clung to the railway lines<\/p>\n
As I was taking photographs for my magazine three children approached me and asked for water<\/p>\n
I asked the children why they were in the desert so far away from any town<\/p>\n
They told me that they were looking for their mother who they had lost<\/p>\n
I asked for a description of their mother<\/p>\n
Our mother is brighter than the sun shedding rays of light clearer and stronger than a crystal goblet full of sparking water pierced by the rays of the sun <\/i><\/p>\n
Their description matched that of the woman who had shed her birth milk freely into the desert on my outward journey<\/p>\n
I told the children of my brief meeting and they asked that I might stop the next train so that they could board it and further their search<\/p>\n
This I did and soon I was alone in the desert again surrounded by the rainbow flowers<\/p>\n
I stayed in the desert for the next ten years and made my home amongst these brilliant flowers<\/p>\n
The world gradually forgot about me<\/p>\n
Until one day during the height of summer when a passing train stopped<\/p>\n
A nun and the woman I had briefly met many years previously alighted and walked towards me<\/p>\n
The nun smiled and touched my beard<\/p>\n
Not many would recognise you now Jack Bill but you have completed God\u2019s task <\/i><\/p>\n
There is a compartment for you on the train <\/i><\/p>\n
Return to the world you left behind <\/i><\/p>\n
Without answering I joined the train<\/p>\n
The nun and the woman I had met on the train were standing in the shade of a small tree<\/p>\n
They had collected my meagre possessions and had handed them to the guard<\/p>\n
As the train gathered speed I noticed that the rainbow flowers were beginning to wilt and soon all I could see was sand<\/p>\n
Within days of my return I was again in possession of my previous life and people treated me as I had never been away from the city<\/p>\n
I returned to the desert many years later<\/p>\n
On the day that the nun died<\/p>\n
But in the area where the flowers had once grown I found only sand<\/p>\n
Yet in this sand there were many footprints<\/p>\n
Some were silver<\/p>\n
Some were gold<\/p>\n
But all were brushed by the brilliant dust of the rainbow flowers<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Many years ago I was on a train travelling through the Spanish desert when the woman opposite me asked if I would open the window As soon as I did so she expressed her excess milk from the train I thought little of it until I travelled back through the desert some weeks later Where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stuartmillerosborne.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}