The Muleteer

The muleteer crossed the half-penny bridge, his mule-wagon loaded down with eel skins and starfish. That morning before leaving home he packed his haversack with apple cores (to feed the mules) cider and enough shag to roll a day’s worth of roll-your-owns. He yanked hard, then pulled back on the reins, his hands rubbed raw with strop oil and mule piss. ‘…dumb animals don’t know their right side from their left, cursed beasts…’. He pulled up alongside the aqueduct, lowered himself from the buckboard and fed the mules, their coats slick with sweat and day-old piss. He reached into his overcoat pocket and pulled out a roll-you-own, the end wet with spittle. He bit down hard on the tamped end, scallops of smoke tearing his eyes. The mules, hobbled with exhaustion, chomped on the apple cores, their eyes caulked with bluebottles and dirt. The city of Targovishte-Turgovishte sat in a dell 27 ½ hectors below sea level. The muleteer had lived in the city for the past 100 years, his forbearers having built the first muleteer colony in all of Targovishte-Turgovishte. The alms man collided with the muleteer, both men colliding with the legless man, who, re-buckling the straps to his stump-ends, didn’t see either man coming.