Stuck

[Jedi Gali]

Stuck

 

The black mud could not have smelled worse. It couldn’t have felt worse either, warm slime mixed with weed tendrils that oozed around the ankles.

Ka’lir tried to be thankful he had the good sense to put his boots in the cart a league back. If the mud had touched the shoes, he never could have cleaned the stench from the sturdy leather. As it was, he’d have to wash himself in the River before he entered the city.

If he entered the city. The traders told him the way to A’bishar was smooth traveling, the River crossing being the trickiest part. They said nothing of this blasted mud!

 

Ka’lir scowled at his caravan of carts, their once-beautiful wheels a quarter deep in mud. How in the pits was he going to restore them to their previous luster, let alone clean them well enough to be sold tomorrow? And what would his father say?

 

Ka’lir imagined the crotchety old man, his enormous white brows furrowed in anger as he shook his saw at him. The first time I sell my carts outside of our village, you ruin them! Disgrace my name! Craft me as an idiot who’d be better off dead!

 

Yet Ka’lir had made one of them himself. And he would be the one dragging the three mud-stained carts into one of the most renowned markets in all of Ra’oha. He’d be the laughingstock of the village.

 

He draped the straps he’d been using to pull the carts over the high wooden front of the first. Shoving his rough woolen sleeves up past his elbows, he stepped back and studied the situation. Judging from the sun, he had already traveled all afternoon in the muck. Yet he still didn’t see an end to the waterland or whatever it was.

 

Night was fast approaching. Yet he couldn’t stop to sleep until he pulled the cursed carts onto solid ground, a place where he could lay out his blanket roll and fix a small fire. Here, he was stuck.

 

He could only continue on. The straps firmly affixed around his shoulders, he took another step. And then another. And another.

Walking became easier, he found as he settled into some sort of a rhythm. It helped if he didn’t think about it too much.

 

His stomach rumbled, and he wistfully imagined the fried beef and potatoes in the large brownstone bowl on the table at home. The soft mealy potatoes soaking up the savory beef juices. And perhaps a great mug of cold milk. He could see Mother covering the food with a cloth until Father came in after finishing the evening chores.

 

Then Mother would ask him how hoeing the garden dirtied his face so much, and he’d splash icy water from the washbasin onto his dirt-covered cheeks. He would smear it around until Mother came and gently wiped his face clean with a rough cloth.

 

At least, that was true until Mother died from the fever and Father sold the farm. Every last pace of land, every gentle wheat-covered slope was gone. The small gray cottage, with its windows’ white curtains waving in the summer breeze, was gone. His home was gone, traded for countless cures meant to heal the fever, not steal his mother’s last breaths.

 

Perhaps it was better to think about the mud after all. He continued on.

 

****

-JG

[Israeli Toa]

Oh, sigh. I love it - but why does it have to be so sad?? As always though, brilliant writing. I like the premise too - a cartwright struggling through the mud...good work, JG.