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Three Horses
Come in. Come in, and see what no-one has witnessed. You step in and you’re outside. So outside. There are no humans, just three horses in a field, the sky pressing against your forehead, urging you to acknowledge something is wrong. Three horses. Two foals drink from a trough and are normal. You recognise your brother. You must look now at the big palomino mare, at her face which is twice the size it should be. You walk up, just as I used to walk in, closing the front door behind me. Every molecule in the room told my eyes to look away but a daughter must meet her mother’s gaze. Those bulging hazel eyes weeping blood – inhuman, beyond the animal. A daughter must put out her hand and touch her mother’s muzzle – huge and red-brown, against the open field of the carpet. No firm bone under the creased flesh, as if her body is being digested from the inside. Her breath comes hard. Run your fingers along the furrows and find the straps of the halter buried in the bag of her neck. Do what was required of me, what I did not know how to do – cut her free. See, just above her nostrils, the two punctures of a rattlesnake’s fangs. She’ll hobble to the trough and recover. You’ll be allowed to leave, you’ll be released.
Pascale Petit
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Pascale at Desperado Literature
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2005,
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