The Summer Side

  The bowl is light.

  Njord tosses it onto his dining table and sits down with a sigh. The rigid wooden chair does little to soothe his cramps, attained from a full day of rewardless performing. He remembers all the times he'd return home with a bowl full of coins, treated to drinks and meals and loved by all.

  When was the last time he earned such a bounty?

  Winter is here, and snow blankets the ground. People hide inside their houses with bolted doors and gather around the fire, table set with toasted bread and mulled wine for their December celebration. They scurry around the village, they slip on ice, and they spare none of their change for the emaciated young man trying to dance on the streets.

  Across the table is Njord's most prized possession, the fiddle he has been playing since childhood. The wood is chipped and the bow is frayed, but still he picks it up and runs his fingers over the strings, thinking about when these blistered fingers and aching arms were worth it.

  He is hungry.

  As usual, there is nothing in his cupboards, not even a crust of bread. Njord gets up from his chair, stumbling and suppressing frustrated tears as he leaves his house. He makes his way towards the woods.

  The snow crunches with every step Njord takes. Frigid water seeps into the worn leather of his boots. He shivers and jumps to pluck tiny vermillion berries from a rowan tree with numb, unfeeling fingers. Carefully, he clambers up a blackthorn tree to pluck their midnight-blue sloes, storing them in his pocket next to the rowan berries. He shivers again.

  He looks into the forest, beyond the berry trees he is used to picking from, beyond cobweb-strung trees and frost-covered leaves, beyond ice-slick stones and snow-covered blewit mushrooms. Njord finds the small, round mushrooms forming a perfect ring, and there is nothing inside it. He dares not near it, for nobody knows what happens to people who fall into fairy rings. He turns away. He tries to forget it.

  He goes no farther than the juniper tree, pulling every berry he can see before trudging back home. The sun is setting, but the village is still very much alive — laughter flows from the local pub, children scream from one cottage, mindless chatter and the clinking of plates emanate from another.

  Njord's house only has creaks as he pushes the door open and walks across the loose boards.

  The harsh winter gale roars in from his open window, and, freezing, he devours the berries like an eagle would its prey. He almost laughs at himself, at his pitiful state; he was once a beautiful dancer, now he is a dying boy surviving on berries. Then he sneezes, rubbing his arms and his threadbare sleeves.

  There are no ageing parents to tend to, nor pestering young ones that he can tell stories to. He has no loved one to hold or to kiss by a fireplace. There is only him, alone and far, far away from a family he ran away from in hopes of a better future. There is only him, slowly starving to death.

  Njord heads for his bedroom and slumps down heavily on his thin, lumpy mattress. He curls up, stomach growling. His breath mists the air. Outside, the wind howls.

  The cheery noises from outside slowly die down, and a few returning partygoers tromp past Njord's house. Their thundering steps feel like punches to the stomach to him; he covers his ears in an attempt to block them out. The tipsy singing of a young man, one perhaps his age, fills his ears, and he sighs. A young woman, who could be his lover, joining in and laughing drunkenly is only salt in the wound.

  Tears, boiling and resentful, roll down Njord's cheeks as the group finally walks away and their conversation fades out of earshot. In a sudden burst of malcontent, he hits his mattress.