Horse

The first rays of light crept across the eastern edges of the skyline as it by osmosis, and the birds that inhabited the farm woke to greet the new day with their usual songs of greeting and reassurance to others of their species. And as the light began its slow march across the sky, movement began to take hold in the undergrowth, as animals of all persuasion started their unceasing battle of existence against the vagaries of nature.

With daybreak, the machines on Miles Cockburn’s farm also had their first taste of the bitterly cold winter air. True, he had been up for two hours since the first warm glow of the sun had kissed the eastern edges of the sky, but in that darkness it was only safe to tend the stabled animals, whose need for food in these long winter nights was all the greater. So now, as light blessed his land with its all encompassing glow he climbed into his tractor and let its engine roar into life. Swung its enormous hulk out into the small road that would take him up to the hills that provided small shelter for his herd of sheep.

This short journey was the one that he hated most, because it was the first opportunity his mind had to drift. Drift, back to the pain that still branded his soul. Drift, back to the memories of the idyllic life that seemed oceans away from the life he had now. Drift, back to the time when he felt human. For now he no longer knew what or who he was. Every time the pain came it was the same sensation, still as fresh as the first time that he felt it. He knew that this pain would never go away, in some ways he didn’t want it to. Because he thought that if it did, then it would mean that he had forgotten her. But his wish was simple, it was just to be able to feel life again in his soul; and for the pain to subside enough for him to engage with the product of that love; their son. John.

It had been 7 long years since Jo had been taken from them, and John, being only 6 at the time, had to all intents and purposes accepted the situation as it now stood. For he had been young enough that the loss of his mother had not had the devastating effect on him as it had on his father. What did, however, was his incomprehension of his father’s emotional and physical distance from him. He didn’t understand the reason for it, and so his only rationale was that he in some way must be responsible for it.

Their lives had precious few means of connection now, if at all. The one true link had been taken from them by another of nature’s cruel vagaries; Cancer. And there were now only two things that they shared: The house and their loneliness. The house and farm had been there for well over a century and had once been part of the land that belonged to a mansion house that was situated several miles down the valley. Its walls were slightly dishevelled but served their purpose well. There were more than enough rooms to accommodate the extra work force that was needed for harvesting the few cash crops on the farm.

The only way John could feel close to his father was to sit in his shiny red tractor and pretend that he was doing the same work as him. He would sit in it in the evenings and imagine himself working the fields. Staring up at the sky and watching all the stars slipping across to the West as if someone had spread butter on them. His mind racing off to unknown worlds, in unknown corners of the galaxy. His father, never really knowing how to instil any kind of routine, left John to his nightly flights of imagination.

During the day, John would sit in the wood that bordered two sides of the farm and watch his father in the tractor silhouetted against the sky rolling up and down the fields. With black ravens swirling behind in chaotic plumes, occasionally sweeping down to the earth to feast on the freshly disturbed insects on the ground. Their nests were located in the trees over head and theirs were the loudest calls that could be heard in the mornings. The cacophony sounded like some kind of massacre as they readied themselves for the day ahead. Sometimes in his night-time dreams they would come swooping down for him. Chasing him across open fields, until finally, his lungs on the point of bursting as they heaved in and out, he would give up and surrender to his fate. The ravens would swarm around his prostrate body. Their heads rocking backward and forward, stabbing at his face. Taking out his eyes and ripping off his lips in a frenzy of blood. He would scream out, “Don’t leave me here. I’ll give you my eyes. Just take me up.” And as his flesh was stripped away, they would take out his soul and carry it up, away from this life of loneliness. Take him up, into the sky, into another realm of being.

But on this bright and glorious winters day, from the safety of the wood he walked through the decaying fallen canopy, letting his mind wander through the life that he lived with his father. Searching the wood, as he searched through their relationship. Looking for a point of contact. A means of living a life of normality like that of the people he saw in the local town. The tractor and his father continuing their relentless course up and down the fields. The exhaust billowing up in the now bright sky. Deeper and deeper into the wood he went, until he came to the other side that bordered the neighbouring farm. He stepped out of the wood and began to walk across the fallow field. Until he reached the mid point of the field, where he noticed a jet black horse on top of a distant hill.

At first sight the horse had a majestic beauty that John found fascinating, and rooted him to the earth beneath his feet, like one of the trees in the wood that he had just come from. The horse also stood stock still. Air left the horses nostrils and billowed into clouds of gushing steam. Its gaze, with out doubt fixed on him. The sight was at once both timeless and threatening. Indeed in that moment John was transfixed by its beauty, power and menace. Its tail stood out from its body, twitching with irritation. The body was one of pedigree and was built for speed. The gleam of its black coat only emphasized the muscles that covered its body.

After what seemed an age to John but was in fact only a few moments, the horse slowly lifted its front right leg, held for a moment, then placed in front and slid into a slow canter, heading straight for him. Rendered naked by the open field John was immediately unnerved by this seemingly innocuous action. His size, compared to that of this magnificent beast was enough to convince him that his situation was dangerous. He knew animals, and was used to being around them at times of danger, but there was no doubt in his mind that he needed to get back to the relative safety of the wood. So he turned and ran back the way that he had come.

Hearing the distant rumble of the horse’s hooves he turned his head to confirm what his ears had already suggested; the horse had broken into a gallop. His mind now clouded with fear, he desperately tried to calculate if he would make it to the tree line. But his mind was now in a free fall of panic and his lungs pounded against his chest. Adrenaline coursed through his body, and both helped and hindered him. His limbs flailed in a jumble of motion and sweat erupted on his forehead. His sight like that of swimming under water. The noise of the hooves eating up the ground behind him, his fear told him that he would not make it to the trees. But stopping was not an option. Still the thunder behind him continued to consume both his ability to think and the ground behind him. Until with out any precedence or clue of its coming, his mind stilled and cleared of all thought and emotion.

From deep with in his subconscious, thoughts now began to break into his mind like a stone thrown into a reflection of a full moon in a perfectly still lake. His Mother, Father, the farm house, his school, his entire picture of his life was shattered in a series of waves that seemed to erase all pain, turmoil and confusion that had constricted his life to one of isolation. And with this mental clarity his mind was distracted from the flight that his body was engaged in and his foot was caught by something, a tree branch, his other leg he didn’t have time to see as he launched into a headlong flight that brought with it a slowing of time. The ground seemed to come up to him, but as he hit the ground, gravity broke him out of his reverie. He turned and lifted his head expecting the horse to be about to trample him into the earth.

But there was nothing; But the sun, the sky, the earth, his pounding chest and a curious sense of peace.