The star dreamer

‘Wake up, boy! Wake up…’ My father was shaking me and I was confused because it seemed that I had only just gone to sleep.

‘Get dressed. Hurry.’

The lamps were not lit and the house was silent.

Outside, the night sky glittered with stars and silken moonlight shone across the sand.

My father was the baker in our village not far from the city, and we could see the lights of braziers and torches and the oil lamplight, that seemed to run up and down inside itself, like water. We heard the bells and the blowing of the ram’s horn, the shouts of men as they shooed their animals through the narrow streets and called their wares in the market place.

I had gone there, slung on my father’s back until I was old enough to ride the ass and later to walk proudly about. At five I was given a small basket of bread rolls to carry on my head and then I did not just walk, I strutted.