That Horse

A horse was hit by a car outside my house. Now, it wasn't my car that hit the horse, but the local laws were very clear that, being the nearest residence, the horse had to stay and recuperate with my sister and me.

It didn't say anything about the horse staying in my bed, but I guess that seemed like the thing to do. The firemen had brought the horse in while I was at work, so I didn't have any say in the matter. Maybe Matie told them it was okay.

I was pretty upset because I only have a twin bed; not only was there no place for me to sleep, the horse had its head and legs sticking out all over. It looked in pretty bad shape, with bruises and scrapes and a bag full of intestines taped to its belly with packing tape. It looked like a grocery bag, like the ones we keep around for cleaning the cat box.

I had to turn the horse over every two hours, but after the first couple of times I decided not to. It was pretty hard to move a body that big, and it seemed to make the horse angry. It wasn't my horse anyway. I was just lucky it wasn't crapping in the bed. I think something was wrong with its intestines (the plastic bag was a clue). I gave it water with a turkey baster.

Matie thought we should put an ad in the paper and see if anyone would claim the horse. I agreed, but in the meantime I had to go to work and do other things. That night, there was a package from the city in the mail. It was a big bottle of pain pills for the horse. "Excellent," I thought, "I am going to make so much money selling horse tranquilizers after that horse dies." But it turned out they were just Tylenol, except each pill was the size of a grape. We didn't get any antibiotics or anything else, just the enormous Tylenol. I couldn't get the horse to swallow anything solid, so I jammed a couple in its anus.

The horse made the whole house smell pretty awful. It really wasn't doing well, what with the intestines and everything. Its eyes were getting filmy and its breathing ragged. Although I was sleeping on the couch, the cat was still sleeping in my bed, next to the horse, and we noticed that she was leaving tiny bloody footprints again. (Last time it was because I clipped her nails too short.) Some investigation proved that she was sleeping inside the horse, having squeezed in through the same gash out of which its intestines had oozed before. I tried to get her out of there, but I had to pound on the horse's stomach until she woke up.

There wasn't really an end to this dream; my alarm woke me up and for a while I was pissed off and anxious about that goddamned dying horse in my bed.