Beginnings

Not a typical Boy-meets-Horse story

This isn't your typical Boy-meets-Horse story, where they help each other overcome their difficulties and live happily ever after. No, this is more like Boy meets Horse, Horse convinces Boy to go on a crazy adventure because Horse is dying and almost gets Boy killed multiple times, with no happy ending. But who am I to tell you what to expect from this story? No one, that's who. Well, correction, not no one. I have a name, but my name is not important. What is important, though, is my story.

Let's start with the first day Horse met Boy. If you haven't guessed, I am Boy, the brown-eyed, black-haired, lanky, 18-year-old college kid, who was travelling to the desolate reaches where civilisation had yet to take hold: my dad's mistress's house. The humid air, the plains of nothingness, the boring untainted scenery—none of it was my style. I needed the drama, I needed the noise, I needed the people. I had a selfish reason to like the noise because it replaced the one inside my head. You know the little voice, always telling you what you are doing is wrong? Well, mine was a big voice, constantly telling me to do this, do that, hate yourself like this, hate yourself like that—you get the gist.

You see, I've always had an overactive imagination. I would come up with story after story, sometimes even start writing them down, but I never finished any because the stories in my head never ended. There was no happy ending because there was no ending at all. Whenever I found the motivation to write, I'd get lost trying to make sense of the world I created, only to realise each story, each back-story, each character was flawed. The stories made no sense when viewed through a stranger's eyes. They went nowhere and said nothing, except that they were trash.

Sorry, that was a long explanation about nothing related to this story. But I'm determined to finish this one, at least for now. Let's get back on track here. The Horse, right. I loved the city life, as we've established, but that's not what I got for those two months of summer vacation. You see, my dad had a mistress. Okay, not really a mistress since they were married. I just could never call her his new wife. Anyway, she had a son who was 20, but this isn't about him. This is about Horse. Well, Horse was also 20 and sick, just like Boy. But again, I'm diverting. Horse is more important.

The first time I saw Horse was the first time I came to the farm my dad now stayed in, isolated with his mistress and Horse. Upon my arrival, I saw Horse out back, in the large fenced area. He was ugly. Well, that's rude, but normally horses are majestic creatures, with soft fur and beautiful long manes. This one looked like it was competing in a competition to be the ugliest one. There was dirt speckled on his otherwise lovely fur, he had small scars all over, his mane was matted and dirty, and the flies—oh, the flies were a dead giveaway that this awful stench belonged to him.

But something about him called to me. He had a sadness that spoke to mine. Such deep, lonely eyes that found mine and seemed to say, "I know you are alone, and so am I. Let's be alone together." "You can't be alone together," mine seemed to correct him. To which they replied, "Everyone is."

Then Horse did something most horses, or animals for that matter, could never do. He spoke, as in real words. With sounds.

"You must be that wannabe father's son."

"Err, what?"

My brain short-circuited, I think. I couldn't believe a horse could talk, much less diss a person. Shaking off the incident, I gave the fence a wide berth and walked up to the house.

Upon entering, the mistress and my dad greeted me. After the useless preliminary talk, she said, "Did you meet Eli? He's out back."

I forget the details of how that conversation went, but let's fast forward because some boring things happened. Now, to the interesting parts. Horse and I struck up a friendship, which was strange since he clearly hated people and I never cared enough to be friends with anyone. But Horse was different. Maybe it was because he was a talking horse and I was drawn to him. Maybe it was because I felt he saw me for me. Or maybe it was because I was simply delusional. Anyhow, it started with me escaping to the fields to try and write, and Horse would stand quietly beside me at first, trying to see what I was writing. Then he would ask questions. Why did this guy do this? Why make her the bad guy? Why is he a blonde? Why are they American? Gosh, he was relentless. He was right to ask those questions; maybe that was why he was all the more annoying. We would meet out in the field, and then he would disappear somewhere, only to be found later in the field again.