The Priest -- 2

I imagine Jozef to have looked a lot like this priest, even though he lived many years earlier.

Dressed in his black cassock, Jozef walked along the sidewalk. A few horse-drawn carriages passed him, but most of the town’s population was walking, just like him.

The butcher came from his living quarters next to his shop, followed by his wife and four children. He saw Jozef and bowed. “Good evening Father.”

Another family Jozef couldn’t yet place joined them, and all six children from both families called, “Good evening, father,” in unison.

Jozef waved, smiled and answered the greetings directed to him. As the people walked they talked and laughed, with fidgety children chasing each other up and down the sidewalk.

What a festive way to get to know my flock, Jozef thought.

He rounded a corner into the town’s commons. In the golden light of the setting sun, the place before him had changed into a wonderland.

Jozef stopped before the fence that separated the large tent from the crowd milling about. Two men, one dressed in a bright green costume with a darker hat and matching shoes, which curled at the tips, the other in a similar, but yellow outfit, flanked the entrance to the tent. The one in green called, “Come on in and watch Europe’s greatest artists at work! See Millie the elephant stand on a tiny little stool! Experience acrobats flying through the air like birds, dancers defy gravity! Come one, come all!”

The local population crowded at the entrance, paying their Zloty to the man in yellow and disappearing into the tent.

Reverently, the crowd thinned for Jozef, letting him go first. He paid and entered the dusky tent.

When his eyes got adjusted to the light from the brightly burning torches along all the struts and sides, he realized someone was waving at him. “Father, come on over here,” the mayor called.

Jozef made his way toward the ring in the center of the tent and the skinny old man and his numerous family in front of it.

“We still have room for another,” his wife, as skinny and shriveled up as her husband, said. She turned to the young couple next to her. “Make room for the Father!”

Jozef sat down, close to one of the torches, which warmed his side and lit the mayor’s family with its glow.

One man in his thirties, probably one of the mayor’s sons – the resemblance was great – reminded Jozef of his oldest brother Januz. Being the oldest, Januz had been lucky. He inherited most of their father’s estate after his death. Jozef, as the youngest, had been groomed for the priesthood from childhood. Not that he minded, even though it would have been nice to have a family. At least, being a priest, he had a good income and the respect of the people that would eventually become his family.

A drum roll brought him back to the present, and he lost himself in the spectacle of the yearly circus show.

***

Something is going to happen as Jozef watches the show, but you’ll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what!