The Invention of the Weekend

Grelgar looked up from his stone bowl of walnut meats. Seven coarse-cloth sacks of unshelled walnuts were stacked in the corner of his hut. A reed basket of shelled walnuts sagged and drooped a few feet from where he sat with a cracking stone in one hand.

After he finished as many walnuts as his bowl would hold, he would put the meats in the basket. Then he would get a fresh bowl of unshelled walnuts and start over. Mingall would come and take the reed basket every day or so, and leave behind bread and fish.

Three days after Grelgar turned 23 (although he did not mark the anniversary, being ignorant of his date of birth), Mingall came to collect the walnuts. Grelgar was lying on a collection of dried reeds and straw, sleeping.

"Where are the walnuts?" asked Mingall.

Grelgar, groggy from drinking, muttered, "Fuck the walnuts, Mingall. And fuck you. Come back in a couple days."

And so the weekend was born.



--Steve Kilian

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