The red mare has been gone for several days. I am relieved by her absence: my life has been little more than drills, drills, drills. Initially disguised as games, I enjoyed each new challenge, but lately each activity has come with a lecture, or demanded repetition until I can prove I have mastered whatever it is the red mare is looking for. Sometimes we repeat one drill for days —and through the nights!— until she is satisfied. It is tedious.
Today would be hot if not for the heavy rain. I can feel the thick air pressing on me but it is more than tolerable from where I move directly in the downpour on my way to find FatherSound. I’ve visited him daily since the red mare left, as I’m not entirely sure when she will return. Once she discovered my love for the ocean she kept me from it intentionally, offering a short visit to the shoreline as a reward for performing well at one of her inane tasks. I tuck my chin and smile a secret smile. I slip away more often than she knows to visit FatherSound: no one will ever keep me from him, least of all my mother.
The sound of pouring rain masks almost all other sounds. I am aware of my breathing as I trot across the territory, eventually leaving the open grasslands and ducking under the dense foliage to take the most direct path to the oceanfront. The birds are quiet today. Under the rainfall I hear the sudden four-beat cadence of a horse at a run. My ears turn and my head follows and not far away I see the golden flash of my dance partner as he races beside Paradise’s river. My body moves automatically: leaping forward, I fling my long legs out and run forward, angling through the trees to close the distance between us, whinnying high to catch his attention.
It has been too long since I’ve seen him. The red mare has been adamant about my focus and claims my attention should be on her and no one else during the drills. Her very demeanor rebuffs any potential company: ears always pinned, tail agitated as a cat’s, front hooves poised to deliver a slashing kick at a moment’s notice— who would willingly approach someone so aggressive? My own shins are marked from her discipline. I hop midstride as I join the stallion, admiring the metallic sheen of his coat and glancing back to see my own black body glimmering, too, from the rain.
Wordlessly, I reach out and nip playfully at his shoulder before zig-zagging to the side, still following the course of the river but trying to keep out of reach of his retaliation as I initiate a game of tag through the dense jungle. |