I can see my daughter now, little more than a heap on the unforgiving stone floor.

The sobs rack her body, as she struggles to maintain what she believes is expected of her age. I want to tear my eyes way form the scene that has unfolded before me, but something in my conscience is not letting me.

The thick-bodied equid is sprawled ungracefully on the floor, its once intelligent eyes now rolled back in its elegant, tapered head in a horrific gesture, its legs tangled in a rather unrealistic way for a pose of death.

Or maybe it’s just natural, I question.

As I watch from the weather-beaten stable door, I feel pained as I see the repetitive shudders coursing my daughter’s back, over and over, like a cycle.

I notice that the horse’s colour, a usual grey-white with a conspicuous silver sheen, is now an almost a light, sickly yellow-white – reflecting exactly how I feel.

The part of my conscience holding me back is relentless; a force pressing against me, tangible.

My beautiful Ella-Rose shifts, and lifts up her head. Her breaths are still heavy and shaken, as though she is struggling to respire. Her face is a snail-trail of distraught, angry tears, and mucus – and something else that is new: mascara.

Only the other day I found her slumped on the stairs of our ranch house; she was mumbling something about not wanting to grow up, that life was catching up with her soul too soon.

I had pulled her close then and told her that this is what makes us human: aging, and finally slipping away. And this makes room for having to make preliminaries for ourselves.

Except that it doesn’t make it any easier to accept, does it?

As if to add to the scenario, a slight gust of autumnal wind flowed in; I felt it as it pushed past me like a fastidious person. It twists and turns, like a small stream, making its path, till it ruffles both my daughter’s and the horse’s unruly hair, gathering up eddies of hay- and then, just as quickly as it had come, it had gone. Yet it felt as if it had been happening for a slight eternity.

Ella looks up at me, her expression inquiring, and I feel stung suddenly, at being like a wild horse hiding in the shadows from its captivator. She then rises, goes over to the corner of the stable, and picks up a large sheet made out of a jute, which is lightly dusted with remnants of horse oats. She throws it over the prone body on the floor – at which point I have to avert my eyes – and walks out of the room. She says nothing.

****

“Mum, what will they do with Cloud’s body?” Ella-Rose asks me, as she settles down into her plush bed. I wince; both her tone and question are far too casual, considering the incident that occurred little more than an hour ago. I don’t answer, but look out of the open window to the right of her bed, as though it might reveal something to me.

Ella persists: she is an eager ten-year-old, but not overly ‘pushy’.

“Well, where will he go?” she asks, toying with the sleeves of her pyjamas as though she is really not interested. I know she is; this is one of her traits. Is it bribery?

“Um…” I hesitant, not knowing how to start. We say all parents know how to answer their child’s problems – yet when it comes to this…

“Will he go to heaven?”

Why is it that every child asks that question?

Is it because we are adults, and it is a normal child trait to ask the seemingly wiser?

Although not knowing, I decide to play the enigmatic storyteller. This is something adults could consider a difficult task. However imaginative we may be, our minds become tainted with the trivia of the modern world.

“Well, the horses have their own special heaven….And, they all live there together, every Appaloosa, palomino, sorrel and mustang. Every single breed. And no-one to tell them what to do.” Ella-Rose face has lit up as she listens to me, with an awe-I-wish-I-could-do-that expression.

“You, see, they all live”-

“And what about hunters and poachers?” She pronounces the last word as if it were a particularly distasteful cashew – which she loves as much as she did horses.

My reply is with all sincerity. “No hunters. No poachers.”

She nods, and sinks back into her pillow.

Where was I?

“Yes, in a land overflowing with milk and honey, with endless green pastures and crystal-clear rivers and springs is where they live. It is peaceful…”

My tone is wistful, but that seems to be having a good effect on my daughter.

“And Cloud is there. He watches over them all.” Ella beams: she is proud of her beloved horse, even dead, and proud of his name – the one she gave him.

Then her expression clouds over, like a dense mist sweeping over a once sunny, quaint village. Like ours. I frown in response, but say nothing.

“But is they’re safe, why do they need to be protected?”

A sudden chill enters the room, and I see some cumulonimbus clouds building up darkly on the horizon. I though I was playing the storyteller so well I didn’t consider the facts. My daughter is young, but has a fierce intelligence; she thinks logically.

“Well, there’s not any clouded leopards roaming outside the window right now, is there, my chickie? But I still feel the need to protect you…”

I tail of and hope this will suffice. Ella’s pale, translucent eyelids are drooping slightly.

“Mmmm?” She mumbles. A sign of tiredness from overexertion of the day.

I clear my throat, like someone about make an important speech. What I am saying sure feels important.

“Cloud, you could say, is the ring-leader. He watches over them, day and night, and every full moon, he canters up to the High Rock, at the very precipice. All the horses are waiting below, ready to see the performance that awaits them…”

I tuck a few copper strands of hair behind my hair, and continue.

“A magical transformation takes place: Clouds rears up in the air, and calls to his people. He is ruler supreme. And then, dust nymphs from distant moons come out of the dark blue sky which is scattered with radiant stars”. I gesture up to Ella-Rose’s ceiling, which, coincidentally, is patterned with glow-in-the-dark stars.

“Clouds colour becomes a glossy silver-white, and as the nymphs fly around him, they scatter dust round him. They are as tiny as the smallest species of butterfly.”

And then? Says, not Ella, but my very being, my deprived soul that needs imaginative nourishment.

“He becomes…Parthalan, the Golden Unicorn. The horses neigh their approval, throwing back their moonlit manes, knowing that he will protect them from time indefinite.”

I take a breath.

Then I look over to Ella-Rose, and experience a wave of frankly profitable disappointment. She is fast asleep. In reality, the story never really got told.

I kiss her soft-skinned cheek; turn off the lamp and go to walk out of the room.

And then I notice that on her lips, near spoken, is a word, one which I never knew my daughter had any record of.

Fecund.

---The End---