"Two Horses Talking"

A continuing series wherein the world goes mad and I’m fashioning doilies.

TWO VENERABLE HORSES, MUNCHING GRASS IN THE PASTURE.  (AS OPPOSED TO BEING “OUT TO PASTURE, WHICH THEY ACTUALLY ARE BUT THEY THINK THEY’RE STILL ACTIVE SO WHY SPOIL THE ILLUSION?)

HORSE ONE (TO “HORSE TWO”):  “Hey.”

“HORSE TWO” CONTINUES DOING WHAT HE’S DOING, WHICH IS ESSENTIALLY NOTHING IF YOU DO NOT COUNT MUNCHING GRASS.

HORSE ONE:  “Hey!”

A STARTLED “HORSE TWO” ROUSES FROM HIS REVERIE.

HORSE TWO:  “Huh-what?”

“Did I wake you?”

“I was munching grass.  You can’t munch grass when you’re sleeping.  What am I, a

‘Sleep Muncher’?”

“You sure looked like you were sleeping.”

“I was meditating.” 

“Meditating?  What’s that?”

“You go into “Deep Grazing Mode”, and just “zone out.”  I can do it for hours.  Then a fly lands on me, and I’m back.”

 

“I was ruminating.””

“You mean, like thinking?”

“Yeah.  I was just thinking.”

“That sounds like a big waste of time.  You know what the great horse-philosopher George Bernard Rickshaw Puller once said:

‘Ruminating is a good graze spoiled.’”

“Hey, do you ever think about ‘The Time’?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“What’s the point?  It happened, and it’s done.”

“Y’know everything changed because of ‘The Time.’” 

INVOLUNTARILY, “HORSE TWO” SIGHS NOSTALGICALLY.

“Once we ran wild and free.  Then someone jumped on our backs.  And for two thousand years, they rode us around.”

“So you do think about it.”

“It is not helpful, but occasionally, yes, I do.”

“Why did he do that?”

“Who?”

“The ancient ‘Two-Legger’ who jumped on our ancestor’s back?  It seems like a crazy thing to do.  Have you ever jumped on anyone’s back?  I haven’t.”

“Legend has it that they were kidding around, and we were grazing nearby.  You know what happens when you’re grazing.  You are not fully alert.”

“You’re not fully alert.  I graze, and keep looking around.”

“For new places to graze.”

“Yes.  But for danger as well.  A horse can divide his attention.”

“Well that horse did not.  And before he knew it, there was this bizarre ‘Foreign Body’ sitting on his back, kicking him in the ribs.  On a reflex he just started to run.

“By the time he got tired, they’d gone so far, the amazed onlookers could barely make out where they were.  These people aren’t stupid, even though they can only grow two legs.  They did an immediate calculation.  How long would it take them to walk that far?  And how long would it take them ‘on horseback’?  Seeing one way was much faster, they said, 

“From now on, we ride!”

“‘The Beginning of the End.’”

“Later, they cinched saddles on us, and stuffed ‘bits’ in our mouths.”

“ Now there’s a misnomer.  They should call them ‘lots.’ 

“You know the phrase, ‘ That thing could choke a horse’?  That comes from ‘bits!’  

“A bad thing for mouth-breathing horses.”

“I know.  You have to breathe around them.”

“Hey, can we talk about something else?  Or, even better, nothing at all?

“Too upsetting, huh?”

“No.  Earl’s tired.”

“Okay.  You graze and I’ll ruminate.  I think it’s healthy to talk about this.  We’ll do more tomorrow, okay? 

NO RESPONSE FROM “HORSE TWO”

“Okay?” 

“HORSE ONE” LOOKS, SEES “HORSE TWO” ALREADY IN NEDITATIVE “GRAZE.”

“Boy!  When he goes, he goes.”  

  

OUR SAGA OF ANIMALS WITH TOUGH LIVES WHO ARE NOT EATEN THOUGH OCCASIONALLY THEY ARE CONTINUES.