Summary

The boy and goatherd began their day of walking, pausing on occasion for the goats to graze and the goatherd to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette. The sun beat down on the dry, abandoned fields. The boy struggled to keep up in the heat, but the goatherd refused to stop until the hottest hour of the afternoon.

They settled in a spot by a long dried-up pond. The boy wandered along the muddy bank, longing for the days when he could have gone swimming. When he returned the goatherd had managed to fill their flasks with a little muddy water. They ate and the boy applied aloe to his burns.

The goatherd then instructed the boy to cut some nearby grass into bundles, and it took the boy until the evening to complete the arduous task. They ate a simple dinner, and afterwards the exhausted...