The Thinker and the Goat Farmer

The pitchfork drove itself deep in to the mass of crusted manure with next to no persuasion from my hands, forearms or shoulders which were all throbbing like deep cuts dipped in brine. The oxidized forks groaned faintly, forewarning a misfortune and the weight of the dense waste caused the prongs to arch in a casual yaw.

 “Fooken ell, ya’v dun rupshard the devuls septek tenk” Henrys words were delivered in twinned with fine webs of spit and he set to wiping prickling tears from his eyes.

I flap jacked the heavy wad of excrement to merge with the fifty preceding forkfuls in the large cart backed in the corner of the stable.

“Yud bess leve ut wulliyum…wul teke e breke n av somthun to aight… um arlf fooken sterved”. He croaked, chewing the leather neck strap of his anorak.

Henry’s filth brushed fingers make the prevalent sign of a sandwich as I consumed another caustic breath. I was unsure whether I could stomach lunch, but Henry seemed to want for a break and it was a good excuse to get away from that awful stench.

I let the pitchfork fall, its landing muted in the dusty shadows of old straw and followed Henry bent over through the shallow doorway, out from the granular air of the pen and into the lambent afternoon sun.

As we sat eating potato bread on stumps of chestnut trees long fallen, Henry told me stretched truths about rare ancient drugs and their origins.

“So teke inta eccown thuz poo-or fawks reet…they tu wante gey mussey… bute beeyun poo-or they canno,” his furry jaw pounded a thick tearing of bread and his eyes glazed vacantly as he spoke.

“bute thus patiqulair drog…they nem esceeps meh nowe…et as e redeemun valyeah.”

I found myself leaning closer to make out the words working their way out of his crumbling lips. Deciphering his wild descriptions was doubly difficult during mealtimes, like reading fine print in a pepper storm.  

“End they wud weyt undare they ruch coonts bellconey fore theym  te puss…thun they poo-or lads cud ge high us kesstruls tu, coss they puss wus stull full o tha drog”.

I nodded, smiling at Henry as first he rumbled, then convulsed with laughter, lurching a large marbled wad of bread and wine free from his throat. I watched it flop into the patchy grass, roll and gather camouflage.

The afternoon air got suddenly bitter and as I drew it in I tongued lose, some clots of dough and thought of home, the silent streets of London and the constant noise of contemplation.

 Goat bells clanged up on the hill behind the house.

I supposed the things I would write in my journal that evening.

“harr haw harrrr, bluedey brullyant”, Henry beamed and a cluster of crumbs wrestled free from his whiskers.

The ‘clak bok’ of a goat bell rang close and a robust nanny waddled to a stop beside the house and stared blankly at the two figures in grey overalls stained with dark green and brown smirch.

I looked across at a sizeable doe standing absently by the house and considered the relentless rotation of her mouth, tugging in loose needles of grass with her black lips and said to myself. “You make a fine point”.