The Devil rides into town on a black chopped motorcycle, handle-bars up high (hard to control, but stylish as hell). He blazes across the track with dust flying out behind him, like a low-flying black comet, like a bad omen. Head down against the grit in the air, eyes hidden behind dark lenses in designer frames. Leathers crack in the desert wind like bull-whips. The sun glares down out of that big blue sky: the eye of an unforgiving god.

The streets are empty. Tumbleweeds blow across the trail - something out of a better class of Western. Setting the scene. It's good. It's always good, when the Devil rides into town.

The engine's fevered, high-octane scream ebbs and dies, drawls into a steady, guttural throb. Oil oozes onto parched earth underneath the bike. No rainbow sheen to the oil, just pools of flat, viscous dark. Black cowboy boots - scratched and scuffed - touch down. The ground, red and baked, seems to tremble for a moment, shimmering in the heat. You call this hot? He'll show you hot.

And just for a second, behind the blind eyes of windows, in airless, stagnant trailers, in parking lots and saloon bars and a hundred other places all over town, people forget. For that one second, there are no excuses, no reasons why not. Fights break out; tongues writhe together like snakes; hands tangle in hair or claw on sweat-stained vests; fists meet faces with breaking sounds; cars swerve wildly to hit each other.

When the moment's passed, there will be apologies and explanations. Justifications will be offered for something they'll never understand.

The Devil looks around, and you can tell those eyes are smiling behind their slick shades. Engine starts up again with a sound like the armies of Heaven opening fire. Slow and easy, the Devil rides out of town.

But I know he'll be back.

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