Twilight for Horses

A close up of an adolescent horse. She has a brown, wet coat and a white star. This is the same photo from last post, only cropped in to denote the passage of time.

It was in this town that I’d been compelled to spend a month every summer until I was fourteen.

A baby horse gallops into frame, her brown coat blotchy with rain and soot. Mommy is behind her, and they are escaping the only life they have ever known, in pursuit of a really hot, flat city.

It was from this town and its gloomy, omnipresent shade that my mother escaped with me when I was only a few months old.

A light brown horse wears a form-fitting and flattering horse balaclava, aggressively patterned with ye olde stars and stripes of the American flag. The horse proudly stands in a sunny green field, and feels grateful for the fully customizable outfit with free alterations.

It rains on this inconsequential town more than any other place in the United States of America.

Another rain-soaked horse, because Forks SUCKS! The horse is dark brown, and wearing a checkered rain blanket. It’s pouring rain, but he remains outside, because he thought it might be a sexy picture.

In the Olympic Peninsula of northwest Washington State, a small town named Forks exists under a near-constant cover of clouds.

Gleaming brown horse carries a person wearing a puffy, black parka with a brown, fur trim. They stand before a dramatic Irish landscape. It’s my carry on, the horse says

My carry-on item was a parka.

A miniature dark brown horse wears a beautiful red, white and green quilted number, trimmed with ruffles. She also wears a white bonnet with a red ribbon. She wears this because it’s a metaphor.

I was wearing my favorite shirt—sleeveless, white eyelet lace; I was wearing it as a farewell gesture.

First person perspective atop a chestnut horse. There unfortunately are clouds, so just pretend there aren’t. The horse looks at a sweeping desert landscape, and I am really mad about these clouds, guys.

It was seventy-five degrees in Phoenix, the sky a perfect, cloudless blue.

A brown horse pokes her head out of the back end of the horse trailer. Mommy is up front, driving the horse to her new adventure.

My mother drove me to the airport with the windows rolled down.

Three horses pose for a picture in front of misty moorlands. The horse in the middle is the hottest, with a brown face, and a crooked blaze of white on his nose. The right horse is dark brown and wary, still new to being a horse, so must work to control his horse-like urges. The left horse, who is brown with frosted tips, is the tough guy, eyes narrowed and prepared to fight.

1. First Sight

Horse with head turned to side, his long tongue lolling out and big scary teeth bared. He looks silly, but he is about to kill me.

The hunter smiled in a friendly way as he sauntered forward to kill me.

An ethereal white horse looks tenderly at the camera, a field behind him flooded with dawn’s golden light. A crimson lens flare kisses his cheek.

When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.

A brown horse stands in the rain, rolling hills in the background, and perhaps a glimmer of sun through the storm clouds. Could it be…hope?

But terrified as I was, I couldn’t bring myself to regret the decision.

A reddish-brown horse with a white stripe on his nose is not currently facing death, but instead he trots through the Arizona desert. He is thriving and gleaming in the intense southwestern sun, surrounded by cacti and scrubby looking vegetation.

I knew that if I’d never gone to Forks, I wouldn’t be facing death now.

Close up of a horse eye with a single tear rolling down her face. Her coat is brown, with a brown mane, and she weeps gently.

Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something.

Up close shot of a cocoa brown horse, her face turned to side eye the horse behind her. The horse in the background stares at the cocoa horse…pleasantly?

I stared without breathing across the long room, into the dark eyes of the hunter, and he looked pleasantly back at me.

The Nazgûl run from giant water horses in the river, summoned by token female character in lord of the rings, Arwen.

But even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.

Brown horse with butt facing the camera, his ass both muscular and beautiful. In the background, trees and a dirt road. Horse wears a bridle, and is giving side eye, or perhaps a coquettish wink to the camera.

—though I’d had reason enough in the last few months—

Close up of a worn and paint-chipped rocking horse, with blood red nostrils and vacant eyes.

I’d never given much thought to how I would die