Common Villager's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The first drop hit the back of Common Villager's neck while he was eating supper. He looked up. A dark spot bloomed on the ceiling beam above the table. His wife stopped chewing. His daughter reached out a small hand to catch the next drop. "The rains," his wife said. She did not need to say more. The desert rains came hard and fast, and when they came, they came for days. He had meant to fix the roof last month. He had meant to fix it the month before that too. He pushed back from the table and stepped outside. The village stretched around him in a cluster of wooden homes, thatch and shingle patched over patched, chimneys leaning, fences sun-bleached. Above the flat desert sky, clouds had gathered thick and low. He could smell the wet in them. He had maybe an hour. He wanted nothing more than this. A roof. A wife. A child. A quiet life in a quiet village. He had chosen it, and he meant to keep it. He climbed the ladder with a bundle of straw under one arm and a bucket of clay under the other. The straw hat kept the low sun out of his eyes. On the roof he found the hole fast. A rotten patch the size of a dinner plate, edges soft and black. Bigger than he'd hoped. He knelt and pressed his palm around it. The wood underneath crumbled. He worked. He tore out the rotted shingles and packed clay into the gap. He layered straw over the clay and pressed it down. His hands moved the way his father's had once moved. The first thunder rolled while he was still working. He did not look up. His wife passed a second bucket up the ladder. His daughter watched from the doorway with her arms wrapped around a small clay cup. The rain started before he finished the last corner. Fat drops, then a rush. He flattened the last of the straw with his forearm and drove a wedge of scrap wood over the seam. Water sheeted off the patch and ran down the eaves the way it was supposed to. He climbed down soaked. Inside, the table was dry. The beam above it was dry. His daughter set the clay cup down and clapped once. His wife handed him a rag. "You'll do the west side tomorrow," she said. "Tomorrow," he agreed. He sat down to finish his supper. Outside, past their fence, a neighbor's voice rose over the rain, sharp and scared. Then another. He set the rag down and listened. Someone was shouting about a wagon on the road, and a man bleeding, and a broken circle painted on the side. His daughter looked at him. He stood up.