“SAFFRON AND SAGGET!” the old wizard shouted from his seat in the cart, as he tried to remember the magic words. But the bull did not move from the middle of the road. Instead, he turned his head and blinked his eyes at him.
“No, no, no”, he muttered to himself, “that’s not it either. Now what was it again?” He was having trouble remembering, and he had been at this little game for some time now. He had actually lost track of how long this had been going.
“SELDOM IN TRAFFIC!” this time he dropped the reigns, raised his arms, and splayed his forgetful fingers. But there was still no movement from the bull. He simply continued to eat the grass growing in the middle of the road.
“Confound it all! What were those blasted words?” He reached into his satchel and pulled out his thinking pipe, which was still loaded from the night before, struck a match, and began to puff and pull.
“Now let’s see, eh? …sitcom in static? No, no…seed tray in the attic? No, no...” His mind wandered over word combinations and potion mixtures, and then back into what was left of his aged memory. Over mountains and across rivers, down paths and tunnels now lost to time and the busyness of life. To younger days full of experiments in magic and adventure. To faces and voices that remain now only in a passing visage. Memories that now seemed fuzzy and hard to grab hold of. And then, as the breeze shifted, the moment was gone.
Meanwhile, the bull had finished the patch of grass he was eating, and began to saunter away to the west, towards his home pasture.
The wizard, who did not think himself too old just yet, and had resumed going over various combinations of magic words and phrases, noticed the bull wandering off and threw his hands forward shouting, “CALENDAR SPORADIC!”
With the road now clear, and feeling quite clever of himself, he gave a gentle whip of the reigns, signaling to his horse, Daniel, to continue down the road.
Daniel turned his head and looked at the old wizard.
“What, I said the words.” The wizard was not altogether convinced himself.
Daniel laughed a very horse-ish laugh, and the two friends continued on their journey for many miles…
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