We pass small alleys while the shadows lengthen on the eve of the day before the baby is due. The night is pregnant with things black and mysterious. Emerging stars offer no consolation or comfort. I hear the chatter of other beasts settling in their hay-beds on the other sides of the walls we pass.
Had a good rest in the stable before our walk. I closed my eyes during most of the fight the two of them had had. In fact, Mary threw him out. She'd said, "Bring back some food or some fuel to burn you good-for-nothing!". Then, as she flung an empty urn, "I married a bin-sniffing dog. Or at least a dog would bring a scrap for his family! You would rather fondle the rejected goods of other men than be a husband and a father!" Joseph stalked out leading me by my tether and turning his thin silent cheek to her wail.
My master has not plied his craft for many months. He'd needed to diversify to make ends meet. Instead of selling his own handmade pieces to the men and women with purple gowns in the marketplace, he's had to resort to refurbishing what has been discarded and hawks them from my back door-to-door; a bench that lost a leg could be mended and resold, rough chair backs without seats repurposed as axe handles or small vessels. We've become salvagers, picking our way between the taverns, cess-pits and brothels to large unofficial midden heaps on the edge of the city where death stares men in the face and many men smile back at it.
His eye has become practiced at seeing value in the smallest bits of material, however charred or broken. The value he sees or is able to give has not translated into fortune for us, his family. As Joseph and Mary's prospects dwindle he's taken to going out more and more just to get out of the house, picking up the worn-out bits of wood and other fragments more out of bemusement than purpose.
Where once other scavengers regarded Joseph as a colleague and competitor in the game of sifting for unknown treasure, they now see his decrepitude, how gingerly he walks and how few wares he has to sell. It's known that he and Mary are to have a child as well, and among the wicked jests that are said about him is perhaps they might eat the pauper-to-be to stave off the inevitable madness of winter. We have nothing to give an assailant apart from our last gasps, so what have we to fear as we trudge openly?
There, there was a body before us. A man had been mauled by something and partially eaten after having been thrown in the lane, his wretched body twisted in a few rags. Many pitiful creatures like ourselves lined the road, either begging or dying, but none took notice of this expired person that we had nearly tripped over. Joseph pulled back, recognising his face.
"Oh no. Aaron. Oh, my friend Aaron. What has happened? You must have owed. Oh damn. Come on then."
He managed to drape the dead body across my back.
"We must take him home." Joseph nudged me in a new direction and we sought the place that the friend Aaron had lived.
Our progress was slow and in the darkness, the eyes of those who still lived around us picked out pricks of light as they groaned and lay in their insensible positions, paying no heed to our progress.
We found the door. No light could be seen from within. It was a hovel and Joseph tried to enter but the roof was near collapse and no one was there. Surely, Aaron's wife had either died or fled. As Joseph exited the hut, the door came away and dropped with a thud on the ground by me. It was a very good piece of solid oak. It had neither cracks nor was it warped.
Joseph carried Aaron into the house which now was his tomb. As he did so, my master's back seemed straighter and stronger than before, or I was imagining things in my drowsy donkey's way. Feeling less tired suddenly and only able to attribute it to the lessening of my burden, I made a chatter to which some other beasts replied.
Joseph picked up the door and turned it over before loading it on my back. It wasn't heavy and I was glad that we would be returning with something for Mary. His hand reached for my neck and I leaned into it, aware that the strange touch of a human could be soothing to me although I didn't understand how.
We are returning now. We enter and I retreat to my far end of the stable after Joseph takes the wood from my back. Mary has not slept yet, but she is calm. All is calm. I eat what little grass there is in my corner placidly and close my eyes. I can hear the soft sounds of the two of them embrace. The baby will come the next day and I know that the oak door will be the little one's cradle.
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