Donkey

The path was so well sodden with rainwater that it ran almost like a muddy river. Struggling through the flow was a donkey, head drooping towards the ground, and, on their back, they carried a single human figure whose face was obscured by a hood pulled tight against their head. The wind screamed between the fence posts that jutted out at the path’s edge. The wind and the suck of mud on the donkey’s hooves were the only sounds that could be heard.

A drop of rain fell from the sky to land *splat!* right on the top of the rider’s hood. It ran down the left side of the hood, a rivulet of rainwater running stop-start down the coarse fabric, and followed the curve of the rider’s ear around in a semi-circle before dropping down onto the side of the donkey’s bloated stomach. The moon’s light shone in the water’s reflection.

A faint, man-made, light shone in the middle distance in front of them, outlining the shape of a three-storey, rickety looking building a couple few metres along the path. A sign hung haphazardly out from the building’s face, with flaky paint proclaiming the place to be ‘The Last Clam’, or maybe ‘The Last Calm’. The donkey came to a stop in front of the door, nuzzling a little against a familiar post that jutted diagonally from the muddy ground.

 The hooded form slid down from the donkey’s back to sink into the mud before the doorstep. They stood their awhile, letting the cold mud soak through their boots and into their soles, before stepping onto the first step and reaching out a gloved hand to push open the door.

Inside the flickering lantern light accentuated insanity. Blood ran rampant along the roofbeams, trails trickling with purpose, weaving between the arches that support the roof above. The barkeep, his ragged face half-hanging from his skull, was squeezing whiskey from his lungs and into a shot glass. His waiting customer, a woman whose baby was tied to her by an umbilical cord running into the rotting placenta still lodged in her caesareaned stomach, stood patiently. A dog ate a liver off the floor.

The traveller stood in the doorway a little while, watching the scene as the firelight spilled out into the waterlogged yard behind him. The donkey gazed in, curious. The traveller took a deep breath before stepping through the door, it was going to be a long night.