Inspired by work.

It was hot. I could feel that immediately. I was in the shadow of what seemed a natural cave with bright, bright light shining outside. Maybe I would have started to wonder how I had come here, but the sound of hooves on rock distracted me. Even before I saw the horse I knew that something was wrong with it. The stride sounded irregular and the hooves were clearly scraping on rocks. I knew the horse was staggering even before I saw it.

I moved closer to the entrance to the cave. Well, less a cave and more just an overhang. The sun must have been directly overhead as the shadow ruled a line between the two sides of the opening. Outside were rocks, scrapings of dirt, bushes that looked 90% thorn with stunted leaves only where the thorns stopped animals from eating them off. The landscape looked parched, burnt and desolate.

A track led in front of the cave. Something, or years of somethings perhaps, had kicked the stones that littered the land to one side and worn a groove in the ground. That groove made it clear just how thin the soil on top on the rock was. Nothing to hold it back, it was little more than dust compacted against the side of what I could now see was a steep sided hill. The track fell from the left to the right and dropped like a set of stairs down into a steep sided cleft in the ground. The cleft ran at an angle from the cave mouth, but straight enough that I could see along the length of its fall. Was that water glinting near the bottom?

The horse came around the corner. It was in a bad way, its coat streaked with the salt of dried sweat. How long must it have been out here to be in such a condition? A frayed length of rope hung around its neck – perhaps this had been what its owner had used to tie it up. There was something written on the rope, but the script was unknown to me and anyway had faded in patches till it almost disappeared. Its gait was unsteady, its head swinging as though it was trying to stop itself from falling asleep.  I stood as it came close and it stopped, seeming to notice me, but not sure what kind of thing I was.

And there it stood, body swaying, hooves shuffling to maintain balance. Flies buzzed at its unfocused eyes and, although the ears and tail twitched at them, even the reflex looked as though it was dragging the last energy the beast had. It would not move past me. I reached out my hand to take the rope and pulled at it. The horse took an unsteady step forward, then stopped again. I pulled more and began to walk down the track to where I thought the water might be. It followed, one pulled step at a time.

The track would not have been easy if the horse had been sure-footed. Dazed by what was surely thirst, it moved with painful slowness and the care one might show if moving blindfold. We went down the track with agonizing slowness, me torn between the desire to pull it faster and the far that doing so would only cause it to fall.

At last we reached flat ground. There was water. Shallow and covered in dust, but not completely stagnant. I brought the animal to it and waited for it to reach down and drink, but it did not. Too tired to bend its head? Not aware of where it was and what was in front of it? I pulled again at the rope and was surprised when the horse pulled back, away from the water. I held the rope in one hand, crouched down and scooped up a palm-full of water that I brought to its mouth. It jerked its head away from it as though I’d offered it thorns to eat. The water spilled from my hand and I crouched again to take more and hold it to the horse’s lips.

Again, the jerk of the head, the move away from the water. There was so little in my hand that it could barely wet the animal’s lips. I wrapped the rope around my arm to leave a hand free, crouched again cupping both hands to gather as much of the dusty water as I could, but it pulled back from the drink with surprising violence, the rope dragging at my arm, hurting me.

What was wrong with this beast? And what was the sound that I could hear? Bells? Church bells? Here?

I woke to the dark, tangled into sheets wet with my own sweat. Not again! The AC most have gone out during the night and I’d sweated myself into a fever dream, to be woken by my alarm clock’s chimes. My arm ached from where a knot of sheet had pressed deep into the flesh. Worse, I’d overslept. Forget breakfast. I’d barely have time for a shower before I’d have to dive into the car and race for class. I stuck my head under blissfully cold water and let it blast the memory of the nightmare horse. I had repeaters to teach this morning and no place in my head for visions of horses that would not drink.