Frankie McCafferty
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
He flicks off his hat and takes off his apron, hangs it up.
He walks out into the back alleyway.
He takes a few deep breaths, leans with his back to the cold bare wall at the back of the shop and tries to steady his breathing.
His head spins.
In front of him, the cold room door is open and a side of beef swings gently on a hook.
He walks down the narrow alley at the back of the shop.
A pen of fat lambs watching him from the back of the abattoir, bleating softly.
Cortland leans his hands on the bars of the pen and the sheep, unperturbed, look up at him.
Glassy-eyed, he feels a deep weight on his heart, so much so that he reaches the heel of his hand to his sternum and presses it there.
Surely not, he thinks.
Surely not.
The weight lifts.
He catches his breath.
And standing there, looking into the pen of lambs, the thought briefly expressed trains through his mind to let them out.
Courtland checks himself, and then he does.
Let them out!
Whoosh!
Out you get!