Five Minute SciFi Stories

a horse is a horse, of course

"Polo. The sport of kings," Dr Collins said, pacing along the stage at the front of the lecture hall. "And our next project." He stopped and held up one hand. An image appeared in front of him, suspended, in the space between the stage and the first row of seats. It was a horse. Life sized. Dr Collins turned his hand and the horse turned too. Head, flank, tail, flank, head.

"The horse is a beautiful creature," he said, pacing again.

It was beautiful. The horse. It was a bay, 14 hands, just like Maisie, my horse, the horse I had before they took her away. This one even had a blaze and a white sock, like Maisie. I wanted to reach out and touch her, but I was too far away.

"And fast too," said Dr Collins. "Smart. Easy to train. But the legs were a terrible design." The horse pawed the air. "I mean, it walked on its toenails. On...its...toenails. Who designed that? That's why they were always getting injured. Why in the end it wasn't economical to keep them."

That's what they told me when they came for Maisie. They were phasing out the old model to be replaced by a newer better one. No one cared that I didn't want a better one. And no one would tell me where they were taking her.

Dr Collins waved his hand and the horse vanished, replaced by a dog. A lean greyhound with sleek grey fur.

"Now the dog. Not bad. Definitely an improvement on leg design. Fast. Attractive. Loyal. And if we just made them a little bigger—" Here the dog puffed up to horse size "—strong enough to carry a man. Where's the problem here?" Dr Collins looked around the room. "Anyone?" We all hunched in our seats trying to look invisible. Dr Collins was known for throwing people out of the course for giving stupid answers. His eyes locked with mine. I shouldn't have been looking at him. Should have been looking at the floor.

I thought about the dog. I'd never had a dog, my mum always said the horses were enough work, but plenty of my friends had them when we were still allowed unoptimised pets. I had liked dogs. Everyone had liked dogs.

"Um, the hips and elbows wouldn't hold up in a dog that big," I said, my heart beating furiously. I didn't want to be thrown out. I'd wanted to be a vet my whole life.

"That's right," Dr Collins said, nodding. "So how do we fix that?"

"Change the joint design -"

"No." Dr Collins held up his hand. "Don't tell me. Show me."

I leaned forward in my seat, flexing my fingers and twisting my hands to knead the air. The greyhound's hip joints popped open leaving his legs dangling behind his body. I enlarged the ball on the top of the femur and deepened the socket on the pelvis. I added extra layers of cartilage and joint fluid cushions between each layer. I increased the tensile strength and flexibility of the ligaments. Then, with a swipe of my hand, I replaced the greyhound's legs. I made similar changes to the knees, elbows, ankles and wrists. Sweat was pooling behind my knees. I think my deodorant was starting to fail.

"Let's see him run," Dr Collins said.

A little push from my right hand and the giant greyhound raced around the lecture hall, almost too fast to follow. After three laps, he stopped in front of the stage.

"Very nice," Dr Collins said. "Now what about the stomach?"

The stomach in deep chested dogs like greyhounds could twist and bloat and the dogs would die without medical treatment. Back in the old days of imperfect bodies. We'd learnt all this in our Veterinary History course.

So we took turns, the ten remaining vet students, to mould and shape the perfect horse-dog-cheetah polo animal. We worked for three hours. When we were finished, we waited in silence, our breath catching in our throats for Dr Collins' verdict.

He folded his hands and walked around the suspended animal. "Yes," he said, nodding to himself, "yes, this will work nicely." He turned to look at us. "And what shall we call it?"

A horse, of course.

Thanks so much for reading this story! If you could design an animal, what would it be? I would love to hear your thoughts.

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This story is dedicated to @NathanielleCrawford who has an uncanny way of creating characters and stories that stay with readers.