Alforjas

Stinking old goats taking flight over the Waymart spire, the carnival crew drive pegs and unfurl tarpaulins, the circus arrived early that year, oxcarts pulling man and sideshow beast. “…they set out for El Toboso”, the legless man punting his pushcart, the alms man “on his old Dapple, his alforjas furnished with certain matters in the way of victuals, and his purse with money” that the harridan had given him should he meet with any emergencies. Her sister “embraced him, and entreated him to let him hear of his good or evil fortunes, so that he might rejoice over the former or condole with him over the latter, as the laws of friendship required”. The alms man “promised him he would do so, and” she “returned to the village, and the other two took the road for the great city of” (Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote) Kalmthout. Meu Pai stood admiring his reflection in the water, his father’s ghost looking over his shoulder laughing. Having wasted too much thought thinking thoughts that are best left unthought-of, the man in the hat sat in the shade of a stately elm, a sun-dappled dog on his way home to his master stopping to sniff his leg.