Kicking the Dead Horse
Two horses are in a pen. It’s late afternoon and those horses are majestic against the desolate desert background. One horse has a limp. A man in a cowboy hat walks up to it, points a .45 caliber pistol at it’s temple and fires. The horse goes down in abig, twitching heap. The man puts another bullet into the horse’s head. All movement stops.
The second horse has big nervous eyes. It’s standing with perfect posture, making sure to show no maladies. The man walks over to the second horse, reaches up and pats it on the head. The horse makes that sound that only horses make. It comes from somewhere deep down that long throat. The two of them stand there for a moment, still with a back drop of dirt and nothing. The man turns and walks away.
He comes back a few minutes later with a blade. That blade takes all the sunshine from the end of the day and reflects it for miles. He walks past the standing horse and stops at the dead horse. He leans over. There’s no sound. The animals innards ooze out like pasta Bolognese. The mess goes up and onto the toe of the man’s boot. He reaches in and begins carving at things.
This might have lasted ten minutes or an hour. The light in the desert goes away in a hurry, distorting time. By the time the man is done digging into the carcass, they’re the dark. He carries the parts he removed the way a mechanic carries a spare tire. He makes two trips without any rush.
A fire opens up and the man is there again. His hat is still on, it catches the fire’s heat and warms his ears. Skewered meat hangs over the fire. Too much for any one man to consume. He doesn’t wait long enough for the hunk of horse flesh to cook through. As the flames cook the outside, he reaches out and carves some off. He eats like this for all of an hour and the better part of the next. What is left of the meat withers away over the fire for several hours while the man lies on his back, hands tucked behind his head.
In the morning there’s one horse in the pen. It’s stomach is torn open and most of the essential parts are missing. Some nocturnal animals had chewed at the entrails and scratched out the eyes. The man walks over to the dead mound, looks over his left shoulder, then his right. Everything is desert, the same way it had been the day before. There are no breaks in the fencing. He circles the perimeter of the pen looking down at the ground. He doesn’t look up until he’s made his way around three times. His throat clears. The sound carries a long way off and evaporated before there’s any echo.
The man walks back over to the dead horse and kicks it. Dust goes up and falls right back down to the ground where it had been. He cocks back and kicks the carcass again, once in the ribcage and again on the rear end.
This scene repeats for an entire day. The man circles the pen, looking down at the ground. Stopping, aiming himself in one direction or another, eventually returning to kick the horse carcass. When the daylight shuts off, he builds a fire the same way he had the night before. He even takes meat off the horse, carries it with bloody mechanic’s hands, skewers and cooks it. Then he falls asleep on his back wit his arms folded across the pistol that rests on his chest.
More animals get to the dead horse during the night. They giggle and nibble at the softest portions of the dead animal. At one point in the night, the man wakes up from his sleep suddenly, pistol in hand. He sits up and fires one shot straight up into the air. He lies back down and sleeps as if nothing had ever happened.
He doesn’t kick the dead horse on the third day. Bugs and larvae have claimed it with no intention on giving it up. They won’t be scared off by a gunshot, even at point blank range. The sun and black birds work together to melt the heap into something that is no longer easily identifiable. The man sleeps on his back next to the fire without eating anything.
Another night goes by as they always do in that part of the desert. When the man wakes up, there’s a horse standing on the outside edge of the pen. It’s eyes are wide and bloodshot. The mouth is dry and half open. The coat is dusty. The man stops and stares at the horse. The horse shifts on its hooves and looks back at him. He walks over, opens the pen and guides the horse in. The horse starts to make that sound that only horses make, but it comes out like a car engine that won’t turn over.
The man walks up to the horse, takes out his pistol, and shoots the horse in the head.
The end.