The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, October 5, 1636 – Fairground Meal

 The annual fair filled the town with sound: hoofbeats, voices, flute music, the cries of hawkers and the whinnying of horses. Everywhere stalls, carts, cloths spread with copper, linen, gingerbread, and nuts. The air was heavy with the smell of roasting fat and stale beer. Children chased one another, and even the Council showed itself—neat, lifted high on their feet, as though their boots did not touch the mud.

I walked through it as always: visible and yet avoided. The crowd gave way, not out of courtesy, but out of habit.

At a stall full of pies, cakes, and stuffed loaves I stopped. The woman behind the table looked timid, but her hands automatically reached for the warmest corner of the rack.
“Three pfennigs,” she said.
I set down the coins and took the pie.

Pigeon and plums—a strange combination, but it smelled good. The crust crumbled beneath my thumb, the meat was tender, still steaming. I walked around to the back, away from the bustle, to the brewery’s stable on Breite Street. There, among empty barrels and straw, I sat on a wooden ledge and ate in silence.

A dog came along. Thin, dirty, with a crooked ear. He looked at me, not asking, but without expectation. As if he had long known the world as it truly is.
I broke off a piece of crust and tossed it to him.
He ate it—slowly, without growling, without haste.
Then he looked at me.
And I thought:
He eats more gratefully than many people.
No judgment.
No distance.
No name, no trade.
Only a piece of bread, shared in silence.




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