As Ellie went back to sleep, at peace once more, Silver was just waking up. The red moon was high in the sky and the glowing radioactive hands of the wall clock winked back at him, goading him on. Silver watched the clock hands for a minute, wondering what exactly made them glow green, crying out to the darkness and the silence that the time was one o'clock. He had always questioned things; he hadn’t lost his childlike yearning for complete understanding of everything and anything, no matter how trivial it seemed afterwards.
Now though, he tore back the duvet covers and slipped on his shoes, which he had hidden under the bed that afternoon. He padded softly across the bare floorboards of the mobile villa, his new trainers already rubbing the backs of his ankles. He winced and walked on his toes across the kitchen to ease the pain. He opened the back door and slipped out into the warm night, leaving it gently on the latch.
The yard was square in shape with only a strip of dry grass lining the fence opposite the house. To his right, there was no fence, only a couple of stables and to his left, there was a fence and a gravel parking lot, where the family’s only car was parked, covered in a thick layer of grime and dust that reached up to the windows. There were two stables in the yard, one, the smaller one, housed the mechanical horse that Silver got for his last birthday. Silver never used it though; he had wanted a real horse and although his parents had moaned and saved hard, looking behind sofas and in the toaster for every last penny, Silver finally got what he really wanted. This was what was in the bigger stable. A grey Arab mare. Four and a half years old. Fifteen hands high.
True, the mechanical horse was beautiful, coated in smooth sheets of silver, intricately carved with etchings of vines and swords, but it lacked life. And although it had cost his parents a pretty penny, it was a hand-me-down, last year’s model. The ride was jerky and uncomfortable and Silver had never wanted a mechanical horse to start with.
He crossed the yard to the bigger stable and rapped his knuckles against the open top door. He was greeted by a gentle nicker and his grey mare swung her head over the stable door. Her kind, intelligent black eyes looked at Silver and she licked his outstretched hand in vain hope for a mint.
‘Come on girl,’ Silver muttered, opening the door and letting himself in. Once inside, he fetched the mare’s bridle from the shelf and tacked her up. He often rode bareback at night; it was far more exciting and his mare was always awake at this time of night. It was during the day when she slept, sheltered from the midday sun in her stable.
He led her out onto the gravel and mounted, leaping agilely onto the stable door and then sliding onto her dappled back. His mare was a mongrel of sorts; she had mixed blood flowing through her veins. As Silver rode her out of the yard, he could see traits of Arab in her, traits of Welsh Cob, Thoroughbred and even Jutland.
He rode her over the dusty path that wound through the maze of mobile homes. No one lived in houses anymore; there wasn’t enough room on the planet, not after the population shattered the ten million limit every government on the world had agreed upon. Only institutions and hospitals and landmarks had solid foundations. But then again, even some of those had been demolished to make way for more mobile homes. The Houses of Parliament, the Angel of the North, St. Paul’s Cathedral; all had been taken down to make way for the booming population. There was even a tandem of mobile homes in the middle of Stonehenge.
All over the world the same things were happening. Half the Gobi Desert in Mongolia had been taken over by rows upon rows of mobile homes. The Russian wilderness was filled with them. Even Antarctica had its share of the ugly portable houses. Offshore mobile home camps had been set up in the Pacific. The world’s population was far too big. It was too much for Mother Earth to handle. Poverty was worse than ever. People in America were suffering the worst depression since the Credit Crunch of 2009. There was just not enough food to go around. Earthquakes were becoming more and more common; they were now a mere inconvenience in the general working of the world. Even a scale seven earthquake was only enough to disrupt public services for little over an hour. The world was efficient; but far too much so.
Luckily, Silver lived in the Romanian plains. It was an English-speaking community, very dusty, lots of smog around during the day, lots of polluted air from the factories, but it was home. It was the only home he had ever known. His parents had often told him stories of England and America, the land that had once been the hope of the poor and destitute. Now the hope of the poor and destitute was Ethiopia. Wealthy port, plenty of fresh air in the mountains for all the people living in the mobile homes, relatively cheap as well, Silver had been told by his aunt who had moved there three years ago.
But for now, Silver was stuck in the Romanian plains. Most people were. Over crowding was one of Romania’s biggest problems.
It took a little while to work his way through the corridors of mobile homes. But his mare was nimble and quick; she was used to the sudden turns and twists in the path and soon they were at the edge of the woods, probably the last untouched forest until the protected jungles of Butan.
The forest was dense; and rightly so, being the only one in Romania, it had a lot to live up to. But Silver could always find a path and he sent his mare to the right, watching as his mare’s horseshoes slotted into the hoof prints that dotted the thin path.
It was a beautiful night. The red moon cast a crimson glow on the forest, the red light filtering through the canopy above, speckling wide leafed plants with colour.
Strange plants grew on the forest floor, sheltered from the rain and the sun by the ferns; these plants didn’t need anything expect the occasional mouse to keep them fed and happy. They had even been known to bite human toes if you walked barefoot through the forest.
The sound of rustling undergrowth was constant; Silver only vaguely knew what lurked in the gloom. Still, he wasn’t scared. His mare was fifteen hands high – no wild animal in Romania could compete.
Silver rode deeper into the forest, the damp air settling on his shoulders and clinging to his fair hair. He didn’t mind the dark. Once he had been afraid of it, afraid of the gloom that hid his fears. Instead, he had gotten used to it, like he had had to get used to everything else.
Silver urged his mare into a canter. He gripped her flanks with his legs, rising off her back and leaning over her slender neck. The stiff breeze whipped through his hair and his clothes billowed in the wind. His mare thundered through the forest, her breath steaming out of her nostrils in plumes of white vapour.
In less than half an hour of hard galloping, they came to a forest glade. Silver tied the mare’s bridle on a branch of a silvery tree and allowed her to graze. Meanwhile, he lay his head on a mossy rock and gazed up at the dark crimson sky he could see through the black tree branches above his head. All was quiet.
He closed his eyes for just a moment and relaxed his body, slouching deeper into the soft earth. The moss rose to greet him, crawling up his body with damp fingers, but Silver let go of his mind and slept. The notorious moss-people would never find him there.
Gender:
Points: 2055
Reviews: 29