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 there had only been parched sand there were now flowers of many colours

The train slowed down as it passed through the rainbow desert and I took the opportunity to jump from the train unnoticed

Flowers grew in abundance in all directions

The blue ones grew in the shadow of the hills whilst the red and orange flowers clung to the railway lines

As I was taking photographs for my magazine three children approached me and asked for water

I asked the children why they were in the desert so far away from any town

They told me that they were looking for their mother who they had lost

I asked for a description of their mother

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

Their description matched that of the woman who had shed her birth milk freely into the desert on my outward journey

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

This I did and soon I was alone in the desert again surrounded by the rainbow flowers

I stayed in the desert for the next ten years and made my home amongst these brilliant flowers

The world gradually forgot about me

Until one day during the height of summer when a passing train stopped

A nun and the woman I had briefly met many years previously alighted and walked towards me

The nun smiled and touched my beard

Not many would recognise you now Jack Bill but you have completed God’s task

There is a compartment for you on the train

Return to the world you left behind

Without answering I joined the train

The nun and the woman I had met on the train were standing in the shade of a small tree

They had collected my meagre possessions and had handed them to the guard

As the train gathered speed I noticed that the rainbow flowers were beginning to wilt and soon all I could see was sand

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

I returned to the desert many years later

On the day that the nun died

But in the area where the flowers had once grown I found only sand

Yet in this sand there were many footprints

Some were silver

Some were gold

But all were brushed by the brilliant dust of the rainbow flowers