Where did you come from, where did you go?

The street people are gone. They packed up and left. Gone. Just like that.

The dirt road in front of our house is empty - empty but for a few heaps of trash still burning, the only evidence they left behind. Foul-smelling smoke permeates the neighbourhood and forces our windows shut. Even then I can still smell it.

I might not have noticed at all if it wasn't for the smoke. I don't usually walk that way and they moved so quickly. It must have been less than a week before they had disessembled their shabby homes, burned everything, and disappeared. Where did they go? And why? Did the children get to bring their toys? The tires the boys raced, where are they? Burned? Or rolling down another street, someone else's street?

But for that matter, where did they come from? Who were these street people? I never really knew. There is so little I know about this place - this country - its people. They were my reminder of all that I didn't and still don't know. Now their absence is my reminder. I miss them already.