The Carrots: A Story of Separation
This is a story about how things were before someone decided they should be different. It is a story about carrots, and coins, and the strange machinery of separation that inserts itself between people who were never apart.
The Path to William’s Gate
———
Thomas is an old man now, here in this place where his mother brought him forth, where her mother did the same, further back than memory reaches. The people and the place have grown together across generations.
His hands know the soil the way his lungs know air. He is part of this—the trees, the stream, the creatures, the sky, the people.
The forest breathes as it always has. Rain falls, soaks into the earth, feeds the roots, rises again. The stream runs clear, never rushing, never still—finding its way as water does. Fish swim. Birds call and answer. Deer move through the trees at dawn. Bees hum between blossom and hive. Nothing is forced. Nothing is lacking.
The soil is dark and rich, alive with things too small to see. What falls, rots. What rots, feeds. What feeds, grows. What grows, falls. The circle turns as it has always turned.
Seasons come and go. Cold follows warmth follows cold. The trees know when to drop their leaves and when to bud again. The animals know when to sleep deep and when to wake. The people know when to plant and when to harvest, when to rest and when to work. No one taught them. The knowing is in the blood, in the bones, passed down through generations who listened to the rhythm of things.
There is enough. There has always been enough. The place provides and the people receive and tend and return what they take. Balance. The way it has been since the first dawn.
Thomas walks through this world and it walks through him. He does not think of it as beautiful because he has nothing ugly to compare it to. It simply is. He simply is. Together.
Among the living beings in his care is a mare, grey and strong. He tends to her, feeds her, keeps her well. She is happy to carry him, and they travel together as companions.
Thomas shares his home with beth. They have loved each other for forty summers, and she has chosen to stay with him for every one of them. Their children are grown now, with children of their own.
Every few days, when the carrots come up more than thomas and beth can eat, he fills a sack and the mare carries both thomas and the carrots across the plain, through the cool of the stream, to the place where william and rose live.
William and rose have been together thirty summers. Their ground is stonier than thomas’s, better for grazing than growing. The goats are fat and healthy. Their four children are grown now, with children of their own. Rose has a laugh that carries on the breeze.
Thomas brings the carrots. William receives them with a nod. They talk of the sky, the stream, the health of the animals. Sometimes thomas goes home with cheese. Sometimes not.
Thomas has never counted the carrots. He has never counted the cheese. He has never noticed whether he receives anything at all.
This is what people do, in this community.
The Man in Metal
———
One day, as thomas and the mare walk their familiar path across the plain, a man on horseback comes rushing toward them. He stops hard in front of them, blocking the way.
The man wears a strange costume—metal plates covering his chest, a heavy helmet, a long blade at his side. His face is red. He taps a wooden club against the blade of his sword. He is shouting.
“Get down! Get down off that horse immediately!”
Thomas looks at him. He has never seen this man before. He has never seen anyone dressed this way.
“I am Soldier Judas,” the man shouts, “and you will obey me!”
Thomas does not know what these words mean. A soldier? Why does the man speak his name in this strange way, as if the two words are one thing?
“You were riding too fast,” the man calling himself Soldier Judas says. “You must pay me coins as your penalty.”
Thomas tilts his head. “Coins?”
“Yes, coins. Money. Payment for your violation.”
Thomas has never heard these words before. He looks down the path, then back at the man in the metal costume.
“My family has travelled this path for generations,” thomas says. “Nothing has changed. The path is the same. The mare knows the way. What is this new thing you speak of?”
“It is unsafe to ride a horse this fast,” Soldier Judas says. “You could fall. You could be hurt. I am here to protect you.”
Thomas considers this. “If I fall, I fall. If I am hurt, I am hurt. These are my consequences to bear. What business is it of yours?”
The man behind the mask does not answer. His face twists. He reaches to his belt, pulls out a wooden club, and strikes thomas across the head.
Thomas falls from the mare. He hits the ground hard. Blood runs from his scalp. He is hurt.
The man in the costume climbs down from his horse. He pulls out a piece of parchment and makes marks upon it. He holds it in front of thomas, who lies dazed in the dirt.
“This is the number of coins you owe me,” Soldier Judas says. “I will return tomorrow to collect them. If you do not have them, I will kill you.”
He climbs back on his horse and rides away.
Thomas lies on the ground, bleeding, confused. The mare stands beside him, waiting.
The carrots have spilled across the path.
The Weight of Metal
———
Thomas gathers himself slowly. His head throbs. Blood mats his hair and runs down his neck. His clothing is torn. The mare waits patiently as he steadies himself against her.
The carrots lie scattered across the path, bruised and dirtied. He gathers what he can back into the sack. Some are broken. Some are lost.
He climbs back onto the mare, and they continue the journey.
When thomas arrives, william sees him from across the field and runs toward him. He sees the blood, the torn clothing, the dazed look in his old friend’s eyes.
“Thomas! What happened to you?”
Thomas climbs down slowly. William steadies him.
“A man,” thomas says. “A man in metal plates. He called himself Soldier Judas. He blocked my path. He struck me with a club. He says I must give him coins tomorrow or he will kill me.”
William’s face darkens. He has heard of such things.
“What are coins?” thomas asks. “What is this thing he demands?”
William sighs. He helps thomas sit. And then he explains.
Coins, he says, are small pieces of metal. Some men have decided these pieces of metal have value. They trade them for things—for food, for goods, for labour. The men in the village use them.
Thomas listens, but the words make no sense to him. “Why would I want metal when I have carrots? Why would anyone trade food for metal?”
William shakes his head. “I do not understand it either, my friend. But if this Soldier Judas demands coins, he will not accept carrots. He will only accept the metal.”
“How do I get this metal?”
“You must take your carrots to the village. There are men there who will give you coins in exchange for food.”
Thomas thinks. “How many carrots for the coins he demands?”
William looks at the parchment. He knows a little of these markings. His face falls.
“More than you have in that sack. More than your surplus. You would need all your carrots—everything you and beth planned to eat. And even then…”
Thomas sits in silence. The world he knew this morning has shifted beneath him.
He looks at the sack of bruised carrots. He had brought them for william and rose. For their children. For their grandchildren. Because the earth had provided more than he needed, and sharing is what people do in this community.
Now he must take them back.
“I cannot give you the carrots today,” thomas says quietly.
William nods. “I know.”
Thomas climbs onto the mare. The sack of damaged carrots hangs heavy. He rides home in silence.
That evening, thomas and beth do not eat. They gather every carrot they have—the ones for tonight, the ones stored for the coming days, the ones set aside for seed. Everything.
In the morning, thomas loads it all onto the mare and rides to the village.
• • •
Thomas arrives at the village as the sun climbs high. Across the stream he sees a man sitting on the bank, a large black box beside him filled with glinting metal pieces. Coins.
The stream runs strong today. Thomas urges the mare forward. The water pushes against them, cold and insistent, but they make it across.
Thomas approaches the man with the box.
“I need coins,” thomas says. “I have carrots. How do I exchange them?”
The man looks at the sack, then back at thomas. “I do not want carrots. You must go to the markets. Find villagers who will trade their coins for your food.”
Thomas thanks him and moves on.
The markets are loud and crowded. People shout and wave their hands. Everything has a number attached to it—coins for bread, coins for cloth, coins for tools.
Thomas finds people who want carrots. But they look at his sack and frown.
“These are bruised,” one says. “I will give you only two coins.”
“This one is broken,” says another. “One coin, no more.”
Thomas does not know how to argue. He does not understand why a bruised carrot feeds a family any less than a perfect one. But he needs the coins. He accepts what they offer.
By the end of the day, he has given away every carrot. Every one. The food that would have fed his family, the food that would have fed william’s family, the surplus and the stores and the seed—all gone.
In his hand he holds ten coins.
The exact number the soldier demanded.
Thomas breathes. Relief washes through his aching body. He climbs onto the mare, hungry, exhausted, still bleeding beneath his bandages, and begins the journey home.
He does not get far.
Soldier Judas appears on the path ahead, blocking the way once more.
Thomas almost smiles. Perhaps this is a kindness. Perhaps the soldier has come to collect here, saving thomas the trouble of waiting.
“I have your coins,” thomas says, holding out his hand. “Ten, as you demanded.”
The soldier does not take them.
“I am not here for those coins,” Soldier Judas says. “I will come to your dwelling later today to collect the ten. I am here now for a different matter.”
Thomas waits.
“You traded in the village today,” the soldier says. “You must pay one coin as tax.”
“Tax?”
“One coin from every trade. This is the rule.”
Thomas looks at the ten coins in his hand. “But I need ten coins to give you, or you will kill me. If I give you one now, I will only have nine.”
“That is not my concern. One coin for the tax. Ten coins for the penalty. Eleven coins total.”
Thomas feels the ground shifting again. “I do not have eleven coins. I had only enough carrots for ten.”
The soldier shrugs.
Thomas tries to understand. “What is this tax for? Where does the coin go?”
“It pays my wages,” Soldier Judas says.
“Your wages?”
“Yes. I do not grow food. I do not make things. My contribution is to enforce the rules and hurt people who do not follow them.”
Thomas stares. “You hurt people… and they pay you coins for this?”
“It is for protection,” the soldier says. “I protect people from harm.”
Thomas touches the dried blood in his hair. His head still throbs where the club struck him.
“You hurt me,” thomas says slowly. “Yesterday. You struck me with your club. You are the one who harmed me.”
“You were riding too fast. You could have fallen. You could have been injured.”
“I was not injured until you injured me.”
The soldier’s face does not change. “The payment prevents future injury.”
Thomas looks at him. The armour. The sword. The club. The parchment. The rules that appear from nowhere and demand coins that did not exist until this man arrived.
He had left his home yesterday with a sack of carrots to share with his friend.
Now he stands hungry, bleeding, with ten coins that are not enough, owing a debt for a crime he does not understand, paying for protection from the man who hurt him.
And everyone else seems to find this perfectly sensible.
The Mare at the Post
———
Thomas stands on the path, holding his ten coins, one short of what he owes.
Around him, villagers have gathered. They watch with nervous eyes. Some shake their heads. Others whisper urgently.
“Just pay him,” one says. “It is easier this way.”
“Do not make trouble,” says another. “The consequences of refusing are far worse.”
“It is for the good of all,” a woman adds. “We all pay. You must pay too.”
Thomas looks at their faces. They are afraid. They have accepted this. They believe it is normal.
He gives the soldier one coin.
Soldier Judas takes it, makes a mark on his parchment, and rides away without another word.
Thomas stands with nine coins. He needs ten. The soldier will come to his home before nightfall.
He returns to the man on the bank, the one with the large black box.
“I need one coin,” thomas says. “I will bring you carrots when I return to the village. I will repay you then.”
The man looks at him. His eyes are cold and calculating.
“I will lend you one coin,” the man says. “But you must repay two.”
“Two coins for one?”
“That is the arrangement. And you must leave something with me, in case you do not return.”
“I have nothing.”
The man looks past thomas, to where the mare stands waiting.
“The horse.”
Thomas feels something collapse inside him. The mare has been with him for many summers. She carries him across the plains, through the stream. Without her, the journey to william’s home becomes long and difficult. Without her, bringing carrots to the village becomes nearly impossible. Without her, he is diminished.
“If I leave her, how will I bring the carrots to repay you?”
The man shrugs. “That is your concern. These are my terms. One coin now. Two coins back. The horse stays until you return. This is not negotiable.”
Thomas looks at the mare. She looks back at him, patient and trusting.
He sees no other path.
He ties the mare to the post by the bank. He takes the single coin from the man’s hand. He walks away without looking back.
The journey home is long. His legs ache. His head still throbs. His stomach is empty. He carries ten coins in his hand and nothing else.
When he arrives, beth sees him from the doorway. She sees him walking. She sees no mare. She sees his face.
She runs to him.
“Thomas. Where is the horse? What has happened?”
He tells her everything. The soldier. The coins. The tax. The man on the bank. The two coins owed for one. The mare tied to a post by the water.
Beth listens. Her face shifts from confusion to fear to grief.
When he finishes, she weeps.
Thomas holds her, but he has no comfort to give. The world they knew two days ago is gone. The balance is broken. A terror has entered their lives—a terror of soldiers and coins and debts and rules that appear from nowhere and make no sense and cannot be refused.
They have ten coins for the soldier. But no carrots. No horse. And they owe two coins to get the mare back.
Tomorrow they must find a way to grow more, carry more, trade more—without the horse that made it possible.
And there is nothing they can do.
The Knock at the Door
———
The knock comes at the door.
Thomas knows the sound before he hears it. He has been waiting for it, dreading it, feeling it approach like a storm across the plain.
Soldier Judas stands in the doorway, his armour catching the last light of the day.
“Ten coins,” the soldier says. “Now.”
Thomas looks at him. At the metal plates. At the sword. At the club that cracked his skull. At the face of a man who calls himself by a title so he does not have to be responsible for what he does.
Behind thomas, beth stands silent. Her eyes are red from weeping. Her hands tremble.
Thomas feels the weight of everything pressing down on him.
Two days ago, he was an old man riding his mare to visit his friend. He carried carrots because the earth had provided more than he needed. He asked for nothing. He expected nothing. The world made sense.
Now he stands in his own doorway, coinless in spirit, robbed of his horse, his food gone, his body broken, his peace shattered—and a man in a costume demands metal pieces while threatening to kill him if he does not comply.
For what?
For riding a horse along a path his family has travelled for generations.
Thomas feels something stir in his chest. It begins as a flicker, small and cold, in the deepest part of him where the despair has settled like silt at the bottom of a still pond.
Failure.
He has failed. Failed to protect beth. Failed to preserve the life they built together. Failed to understand a world that changed without warning and without reason. He is an old man, and he could not keep the darkness from crossing his threshold.
The flicker grows.
It feeds on the failure. On the humiliation. On the image of himself lying in the dirt while a stranger made marks on parchment. On the memory of handing over his mare—his companion, his friend—to a man with cold eyes and a black box full of metal.
Shame.
He has never felt shame before. There was never cause for it. He lived simply, honestly, in rhythm with the seasons and the people around him. But now he sees himself through some new lens—small, weak, foolish, a man who could not even protect his own home from a single stranger with a costume and a sword.
The flicker becomes heat.
It rises through his belly, into his chest, up his spine. His hands begin to shake—not with fear, but with something older, something that has slept inside him his whole life because there was never any need to wake it.
Rage.
Thomas looks at the soldier. Really looks. Behind the armour is a man. Behind the title is a man. Behind the sword and the club and the parchment and the rules is just a man—flesh and blood, no different from thomas himself.
And this man has taken everything.
He took the peace of a quiet path. He took the carrots meant for friends. He took the coins that meant nothing until he made them mean everything. He took the mare. He took the food. He took the balance that had held for generations.
And now he stands at the door and demands more.
The rage ignites.
It is not a young man’s rage—hot and reckless. It is the rage of an old man who has seen the world he loved dismantled in two days. It is cold and bright and absolutely clear. It says: no more.
Thomas does not decide to move. His body moves. Sixty-seven summers of living close to the earth, of carrying, of lifting, of walking beside the mare, of tending the soil—all of it pours into his limbs as he leaps at the soldier with everything he has.
He does not think about winning. He does not think about dying. He thinks only: I will not surrender what I am.
Beth screams.
The two men crash together. Thomas has no weapon, no armour, no training. He has only his hands and his fury and his refusal to let this stand.
They struggle. Thomas finds the soldier’s throat, squeezes. The soldier throws him off. Thomas comes again, clawing, biting, fighting like an animal protecting its den.
For a moment—one impossible moment—the soldier looks afraid.
Then the training takes over. The armour holds. The sword comes free.
Thomas feels the blade enter his stomach before he feels the pain. It is cold, then hot, then nothing. His legs give way. He falls.
He lies on the ground, looking up at the sky through the open doorway. The same sky he has known his whole life. The same sky that watched over his father, and his father’s father, further back than memory reaches.
Blood pools beneath him, dark and spreading.
The soldier stands over him for a moment, breathing hard. Then he steps past, into the home, finds the pouch of ten coins, and takes it.
He does not speak. He walks out, past thomas’s body, toward the path that leads to william’s home.
Thomas cannot move. He watches the soldier’s boots disappear from view.
Then beth is there. Her face above his, tears falling onto his cheeks. Her hands pressing against the wound, trying to hold in what is spilling out.
“Thomas. Thomas, stay with me.”
He wants to speak. He wants to tell her he is sorry. Sorry for failing. Sorry for fighting. Sorry for not understanding sooner what was happening to their world.
But all he can do is look at her.
She does not look away. Her hands are red with his blood, but her voice is steady.
“It will be alright,” she says. “It will be alright now. I am here. I am here.”
She holds him.
The sky darkens above them.
The blood slows.
And somewhere, across the plain, a soldier walks away with ten pieces of metal that meant nothing until someone decided they meant everything.
The Boy Who Ate Eggs
———
Darkness takes thomas.
Beth tends to his wounds through the night, pressing cloth to the gash in his stomach, wiping the sweat from his brow. His breathing is shallow. His skin is pale. She does not sleep.
Thomas drifts somewhere between this world and another.
And in that space, he dreams.
• • •
He sees a boy.
Small, red-faced, loud. The boy is demanding something, reaching up with grabbing hands, his voice shrill.
Thomas knows this boy.
The scene shifts, and thomas sees a man walking beside the boy—an old friend. Joe. Old joe, who used to visit thomas now and then with a basket of chicken eggs, back when the world was still whole. Joe would sit with thomas and they would talk about the sky and the stream and the health of the animals, and the boy would run through the fields, always hungry, always wanting more.
Judas.
Thomas watches the boy grow in his dream.
Judas loved eggs. He loved them so much he ate them at every meal—morning, midday, night. His body grew big and strong from them. But something else grew too. A hunger that eggs could not satisfy. A wanting that had no bottom.
The boy began to demand more than joe could give. More eggs. More food. More of everything. And when joe could not provide, the boy’s face would twist with rage.
Thomas watches the boy become a young man.
Judas is bigger than joe now. Stronger. And the wanting has turned mean.
Thomas sees judas strike his father for the first time. Joe falls. Judas stands over him, demanding.
Joe is afraid of his own son.
And so joe devises a plan.
Thomas watches joe sit by the fire late one night, carving small discs from scraps of metal. He polishes them until they shine. In the morning, he presents them to judas.
“These are special,” joe tells his son. “These discs—they mean you can have anything you want. Anyone will give you what you desire in exchange for these.”
Judas takes the discs. He turns them over in his hands. His eyes gleam.
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
Judas smiles. And joe is safe—for now.
Thomas watches judas walk into the village with his metal discs. He watches him learn that people will give him food, give him goods, give him whatever he asks—if he shows them the shiny metal.
But the wanting does not stop. It never stops.
Thomas watches judas grow bigger still. He watches him discover something new: if he threatens people, they give him the discs themselves. He does not need to trade. He does not need to ask. He only needs to make them afraid.
He finds a costume—metal plates to cover his chest. A helmet to hide his face. A sword. A club.
He gives himself a title. Soldier Judas.
And now the boy who ate too many eggs walks the paths between villages, stopping travellers, demanding metal discs, hurting anyone who refuses.
He has found a way to have everything without growing anything, making anything, giving anything.
He simply takes.
And the discs—the meaningless scraps of metal that joe carved to protect himself from his own son—have become the centre of everything.
• • •
Thomas wakes.
His body screams with pain. The wound in his stomach burns. His mouth is dry, his limbs weak.
But his eyes are clear.
Beth is beside him, exhausted, still holding the cloth to his side.
“Thomas? Thomas, you are awake.”
He looks at her. He looks at the ceiling of the home where he was brought forth, where his father was brought forth, where generations have lived in balance with the place and the people around them.
He knows now.
He knows exactly what the issue is.
The coins are not real. The rules are not real. The title is not real. Soldier Judas is just judas—a greedy boy who never stopped wanting, who learned that fear is easier than earning, who hides behind metal and masks so he does not have to see what he has become.
The whole thing is a game. A trick. A story that judas tells, and that everyone believes because they are afraid of what happens if they do not.
But thomas has seen behind the mask.
And now he knows.
Two Broken Men
———
Thomas lies still for two days. Beth feeds him broth. She changes his bandages. She watches the colour slowly return to his face.
On the third morning, he sits up.
“I need to get the mare back,” he says. “I owe two coins to the man on the bank.”
Beth looks at him. “You have no carrots. You have no coins. You can barely walk.”
“I know.” He pauses. “But william has chickens.”
Beth considers this. “You would ask him to gift you two chickens?”
“If he can spare them. It is all I can think to do.”
Beth nods slowly. “Then go to him. But be careful, thomas. Your body is not yet healed.”
Thomas rises. The wound in his stomach pulls and burns, but he steadies himself. He has walked this path a thousand times. He can walk it once more.
He sets out on foot, across the plain, through the cool of the stream, toward the place where william and rose live.
• • •
When thomas arrives, something is wrong.
William is rushing about the yard, his face tight with panic. One arm hangs in a crude sling, bound with cloth. With his good arm, he chases chickens, grabbing at them, stuffing them into a sack.
Thomas moves to help without thinking. Together, the two old friends herd the birds, catching them one by one until the sack bulges and clucks.
Only then does thomas speak.
“William. Your arm. What happened?”
William stops. He looks at thomas—at the bandages visible beneath his shirt, at the slow way he moves, at the pain etched into his face.
“The soldier,” william says. “He came yesterday. He said I was being unsafe. Then he broke my arm and demanded two coins.”
Thomas closes his eyes.
“The chickens,” william continues, “are to take to the village. To exchange for coins. He returns tomorrow.”
Thomas opens his eyes. He looks at his friend. Two old men, broken and bandaged, standing in a yard full of feathers.
“I came to ask a favour,” thomas says quietly. “I need two coins to get my mare back. I was going to ask if you could spare two chickens.”
William laughs—a short, bitter sound. “It seems we are in the same pickle, my friend.”
Thomas nods. Then something shifts in his face. The dream rises in his mind. The boy. The eggs. The metal discs. The mask.
“William,” he says. “I have an idea.”
“What idea?”
“Come with me to the village. But first—there is somewhere else we must go.”
The Mead and the Breath
———
The two men set out together. William carries the sack of chickens over his good shoulder. Thomas walks slowly, one hand pressed to his stomach.
But thomas does not lead them toward the village.
He turns off the familiar path and heads toward a place he has not visited in many summers—the old home where his friend joe once lived.
William follows without question.
They arrive as the sun hangs low and golden in the sky.
The home is smaller than thomas remembered. Quieter. And sitting outside, on a worn wooden bench, is judas.
No armour. No helmet. No sword. Just a man, alone, staring at nothing.
He looks up as they approach. For a moment, something flickers across his face—fear, perhaps, or shame. But thomas raises his hand in a warm greeting, and william does the same.
Judas hesitates. Then, as if remembering something from long ago, he rises and gestures toward the door.
“Come in,” he says. “I will warm some mead.”
• • •
The three men sit together inside the small home. Judas pours hot mead into clay mugs and hands one to each of his guests.
They sip in silence.
Thomas watches judas lift the mug to his lips. Watches him blow gently across the surface to clear the froth. Watches the way judas’s attention settles on the sensation—the warmth of the clay against his palms, the weight of the mug, the soft movement of air from his own lungs.
Judas blinks. His breathing slows. For the first time in longer than he can remember, he is aware of the air moving in and out of his body. He feels the rise and fall of his own chest. The present moment opens around him like a door he forgot existed.
Thomas sees the shift. The shoulders dropping. The jaw softening. Judas is here now. Truly here. Listening.
And so thomas begins to speak.
“I have been thinking about your father,” he says. “Old joe.”
Judas’s hand tightens on his mug.
“He used to visit me, you know. Back when you were small. He would bring a basket of eggs, and we would sit and talk about the sky and the stream and the health of the animals.”
Judas says nothing. But he is listening.
“You would run through the fields while we talked,” thomas continues. “Always hungry. Always moving. So much energy in that little body.”
A flicker of something crosses judas’s face. A memory, perhaps. Distant and faint.
“You loved eggs,” thomas says. “Your father told me. You ate them at every meal. Morning, midday, night. He said he could barely keep up with your appetite.”
Judas’s jaw tightens. His eyes drop to the mug in his hands.
“He loved you very much, your father. He did everything he could for you, especially after your mother passed.”
The room goes still.
Judas does not move. He does not breathe.
“You were very young when she died,” thomas says softly. “Do you remember her?”
Silence.
Then, slowly, judas nods.
“I remember… warmth,” he says. His voice is rough, as if the words are being pulled from somewhere deep. “I remember being held. I remember… she would feed me eggs. Mashed. With a spoon. And she would hold me, and I felt…”
He stops.
“Safe,” thomas says. “You felt safe. And loved. And warm.”
Judas’s face twists. He is fighting something. Thomas can see it—the walls straining, the mask cracking.
“When she died,” thomas continues gently, “that warmth went away. And you tried to find it again. You tried to fill the space she left. With food. With things. With wanting. But nothing worked, did it? The hole just kept growing.”
Judas’s hands are shaking now. The mead ripples in his mug.
“But judas,” thomas says, leaning forward, “the love you felt from her—it was never hers to give. It was yours. It was always yours. She simply helped you feel it. The warmth, the safety, the peace—it lives inside you. It always has.”
Judas looks up. His eyes are wet.
“Do you feel your breath right now?” thomas asks. “The air moving in and out? The warmth of the mug in your hands? The weight of your body on this chair?”
Judas blinks. He looks down at his hands. He feels the mug. He feels his breath. He feels himself.
“This is where it lives,” thomas says. “Right here. Right now. In this breath. In this moment. You have been suffocating for so long, trying to fill a void that was never empty. But the love is here. It has always been here. You only forgot how to feel it.”
Judas’s face crumbles.
The tears come slowly at first, then faster. His shoulders shake. A sound escapes him—a sob, raw and broken, rising from somewhere beneath all the armour and titles and metal discs.
He weeps.
Thomas and william sit with him. They do not speak. They do not move. They simply breathe, together, in the small quiet home where old joe once lived.
• • •
When the tears slow, when judas’s breathing steadies, william reaches into his sack.
He pulls out a chicken—warm and soft and very much alive.
He holds it out to judas.
“Here, son,” william says. “You are loved by your community. You were loved by your parents. And you are loved by this chicken, who will give you as many eggs as she can spare. Will you love her too?”
Judas looks at the chicken. He looks at william. He looks at thomas.
Then, slowly, he reaches out and takes her.
He holds her gently against his chest. She clucks softly and settles into his arms.
And judas, for the first time in longer than he can remember, smiles.
Coming Home
———
Thomas and william leave judas sitting in the doorway of his father’s home, the chicken in his lap, the setting sun warming his face.
They walk to the village together. William trades the remaining chickens for coins. Thomas pays the man on the bank his two coins and unties the mare from the post.
She nuzzles his face. He strokes her neck.
“I am sorry,” he whispers. “I will not leave you again.”
The two old friends climb onto the mare together—slowly, carefully, their broken bodies protesting—and they ride toward home.
The sky turns gold, then pink, then deep purple.
Behind them, the village fades into the distance.
Ahead, the plain stretches wide and open, the stream glinting in the last light, the trees standing patient and tall as they have since the first dawn.
Thomas breathes.
The air fills his lungs. The mare moves beneath him. William’s weight rests warm against his back.
The soldier is dead.
And judas is coming home.
— End —
Let’s come home.
Breathe Manually.
A story about the machinery of separation—and the path back to what we always were.
This is what people do, in this community.