*Fiction — September 6, 2022
Knackers
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They lived in Knacker’s Yard and produced pairs of disciplined children. At dawn, the pairs set out in carts and the farmers, hearing the bells, pointed at lame horses to knack.
Then their lord was succeeded by his son. Driving his dirty ponies past Knacker’s Yard, the young lord admired the aproned knackers sharpening their saws, their children polishing the bells on the knacker-carts. Neater than his own stables!
I will ask a small service of you, he said to them. If you knack what is in my wagon, I will double the size of your yard.
The knackers consented. Then the back of the wagon opened and a priest fell out.
He was knacked so neatly that his robe remained white, and a knacker child was dressed in it and ordained.
Soon the young lord delivered a collection of fainting couches to the yard. He returned in a caravan, and from it the court emerged to take their seats. Then the lord pushed a lesser duke out of a stall he built for that purpose, and the knack was immaculate.
But the court was displeased.
Instead of one knack, they want many nicks, said the lord, ninety nicks per neck. Try again!
And more dukes were pushed out of the stall. The knackers nicked.
The court drank from the barrels until they could not walk, and dropped to their bellies to nap.
Then the knackers crept upon them and collected their purses. The children untied the bells from the knacker-carts, and loaded all they owned upon them. Then they left Knacker’s Yard, for they had mastered knacking. Now they could forget all they had learned.
Originally published in No Tokens Issue No. 10. View full issue & more.