Small Things Like These

by Claire Keegan

always they carried mechanically on without pause, to the next job at hand. What would life be like, he wondered, if they were given time to think and reflect over things?

‘If you don’t slow down, you’ll meet yourself coming back,

black cat eating from the carcass of a crow, licking her lips. On seeing him, she froze, then fled through the hedge.

Someone, since last he’d seen it, had placed the figures of the wise men and the Baby Jesus there but it was the donkey that held the girl’s attention, and she reached out to stroke and push the snow off his ear.