Foregone
They gave him a stick with harsh bristles on one end that fanned out to the sides and whipped a milky paste in a leaf and dipped the end in. Miming brushing one's teeth they handed it to him. It tasted sour and had a slimy mucous consistency and mushed under his tongue like congealed grease. He gagged and spat it out in the dirt. One snickered and the other handed him the leaf and both walked away and he balled it up and tossed it a short distance. In the pot sitting in his lap he cleaned the brush and gave heed to breaking and throwing it away but instead put it in his pocket. They had no mirror, of course, but they had metal patterned distinct among the wooden everything. Hammered scraps and varied appliances dispersed and relegated. They could be stolen, he thought. These could be like the horse-men of the plains, like marauding thieves full up of their own caravan. But they weren't men. They hadn't the greed of men. The pride perhaps but not the appetite. He sat the p...