Daryl nervously looks around. He coughs and shivers and swallows hard…He grimaces and grunts. He closes his eyes a minute and frowns, coughs again, hurling bodies onto the chariot. With each plopping sound the chariot creeks like an old hag. Daryl holds his breath a while, a useless gesture really. Pulling, grabbing, lifting and throw!
“Daryl….This one’s for the prison…They say she-“
“I don’t care boy…Just dump her on the stack. Dead or not they are all headed for that place”
“But….They say she’s not to die?”
“She won’t….”
Daryl approaches and takes a good look at the pretty woman’s face. He grimaces again, squinting, making wrinkled face swallow his eyes-almost
He grabs her and hurls her body onto the pyle-creeek- again.
The old man sneezes violently holding on to the boy, then he swears and spits onto the ground-yellow.
A young man dressed in a purple toga approaches them stone faced. Elegant steps, he kicks a nearby body, unfortunate enough to still lay on the ground.
“What is this? Why are you not off to Hornburg yet?”
“Sire the bodies have been increasing, I am old…Need I say more?”
“It is unsightly! And your mules stink are they rotting as well?”
“Sire, they have not eaten in days neither did I. How about giving me my pay?”
“How about eternal piece? Shall I hurl your rotten but onto the pile?”
The silence filled with words unspoken, a battle of the eyes. The young boy coughs, breaking the tension. The mules are agitated, their hooves clatter on marble ground, and their nostrils flare. Moving bones.
The man approaches the nameless boy a grin forming on his thin lips. The marble face looks down on him. The boy frowns, barley manage to return the gaze.
“And who might you be?”
“Sir I am a helper sir”
“And of what help might a scrawny little one be?”
“ I bring the….B-bodies here and figure out who goes where”
“As if it matters…Do you know what the Hornburg is?”
“A prison?”
The young man’s perfect face cracks as cold laughter escapes his throat. He pats the boy onto his head and turns, glancing at the old man before leaving. His footsteps resound on the floor, a sound that penetrates heart and bones. Joining a crowd of purple togas he is gone. The old man grunts and grimaces, looking at the young boy, a sigh escapes. Back to work, pulling and hurling till dusk takes them.
