A stranger travels to a parched and drought stricken town bringing with him a song, a story, and a burden.
 

     The stranger came to the city from the east, his path revealed by the swirling clouds of dust that his plodding footfalls kicked up in his wake. The noonday sun burned through a cloudless sky. The sweat stung at his eyes as he joined in a ragged line of field workers returning to the city to weather the worst of the midday’s heat.

     His appearance was ragged, his clothes caked with the dirt and grime of many nights spent on the road. He carried his meager possessions in a burlap sack strung loosely over one shoulder. His head was shielded from the burning sun by the hood of his cloak drawn well over his face. As a traveler, he was unremarkable. He was not the only stranger to have come to the city seeking refuge.

     The man waited his turn of inspection by the soldiers who guarded the earthen walls that separated the city from the surrounding farmlands. Standing in the shade of the walls, the stranger wiped the sweat from his brow, and licked his dry parched lips. In a courtyard on the far side of the gates a group of children played a dodge game with the discarded hoops from the wine sellers—their rapid paces and quick turns growing clouds of dust that were slowly carried out beyond the walls to powder the fields beyond.

     When the stranger’s time at the gate came, he was waved impatiently through by the soldier who looked sleepily at the long line of peasants waiting his approval. It was an unusually long line, and the soldier was more concerned with seeing the end of the line than he was with scrutinizing those that formed it. He gulped down a long draw of lukewarm water from the bladder hanging from a hook inside the gatehouse and waved the next group forward. His nap would be slow in coming today.