I kick the snow from my boots and switch on the florescent lights. The glow is bitter and pale, and the hum of the white tubes can be heard echoing through the stable. Heavy trunk-like faces held over the stall doors blink and stare as I walk down the concrete corridor. Two flakes of hay and a bucket of water for each horse. I rub the snow from my gloved hands and climb the ladder to the hay loft.
I step off the ladder into a musty darkness. The air is thick with the smell of straw, an amalgam of dust and fresh vegetable decay familiar to my nostrils. I walk to the opposite wall, and open the sliding door. The wind howls and the thin light of a day not quite gone by seeps into the loft. There must be almost two feet on the ground already, and torrents of thick flakes are still streaking through the sky from the grey space above. I have seen pictures of snowflakes up close. They look like gears. It is hard to imagine such things as natural, let alone spinning and flailing all around me, burying the ground deeper with each passing minute. A layer of ice-cold machinery between the air and the soil. I shudder from the wind. I can see the light of the house up the hill. I’ll be inside soon, relaxing with a fire and a book and a cup of steaming water.
A lance of pain glides through my chest. My vision blurs and I drop to one knee, fingers clutching the grain of the wood floor. The heart again. I wait. The peak comes, then the descent. Slower now. I pound my chest with a clenched fist, and take a few breaths, each one deeper in the lungs then the last. I watch the clouds of my exhalations float and dissipate in the frigid currents. I stand, grab the first bale of hay, and toss it down into the snow.
After I have gathered enough, I jump down to the land on the bales. One foot slips off. The ankle twists and I fall groaning into the soft white. Not as young as I was. I am never as young as I was. I pull myself up, and limping, reach for the pole by the stable doors. I use it to slide the loft door closed up above, then I take the bales into the stable. The snow on my face melts and burns as I bring them all inside. The snow on my clothes has melted and I can feel the water seeping through my layers of defense. Nothing to be done.
I check the snowdrifts oozing through the iron bars of the stall windows on the upwind side of the stable. The horses see them too, and stare with wide eyes. I hear their groans and whines. They are frightened creatures, always. Scared of weather, of people, of themselves.
My limp is better now. I bring two flakes of hay and a bucket of water to each stall, even the empty ones. The empty stalls must be filled, before I go. I count them. My mind wanders. I think of the past and the future and the empty gap between them that is me. I think of the outside, the grey above smothering the black between with the white below. I think of the snow as a blanket of clockwork pouring silence and cold over the earth. I think of the machine becoming more complex as the snow comes down, new parts being piled upon old ones. I think of the time passing by, counted first in inches, then in feet. It will all melt away in a few week’s time. I count again. Five empty stalls. Five.
I walk to the back door of the stable. I strain to slide it open. There is a snowdrift against the wall outside blocking its passage. I manage to force it open. A few splinters have gotten through my gloves somehow. Nothing to be done. I wade outside once again. Buried in the grey distance behind the curtains of flurries is the fence, and the field. I see the remaining horses gathered near the gate. I trudge out toward them, lifting one leg and then the other over and over again, walking down the corridor formed by the two fences on either side. I am halfway when the pain in my chest returns. It tears through me mid-stride, and I fall face first into the snow. My guttural howl is muffled in the softness. The pain slowly clears away. I am relieved, and consider staying here for a while and resting. It is cold, and I must keep moving. I raise myself to my feet, and walk a little farther to reach the gate to the field.
I am cold through and through, and my skin is wet and I hope it is not cold enough for that water to freeze through my clothes. I dust myself off with gloved hands. The splinters are still there. I know they are there because they are all I can feel of my hands.
I look up to see five horses. Four of them stand around the corpse of the fifth. The corpse looks fresh. There is a thin line of steam escaping from the gaping mouth. The tongue lays flaccid in the snow, and the eyes are glazed and still. The dead horse is black with white spots on its side. My mind begins to cloud. A black horse. I must have had a beautiful black horse.
The other four stand quietly with the snow above their knees. They are arranged perfectly as the corners of a square, the corpse at the center. All four are motionless. Their mighty heads are hung low, and they breathe steam over the body. Then one horse arches its neck further down toward the corpse. With lips curled back from yellowed teeth, it rips a piece of flesh from the lifeless neck, and begins to chew. The sinew swings from the side of its mouth, and the snow is flecked with red.
I fall backward. I convulse and cough and clutch my hands to my chest. The snow caves in onto my face. I can feel the tides of ice circling me, spiraling down into my mouth like a whirlpool into a drain. I cannot breathe. I think I am dying. I want to think of something profound. I am terrified and all I can think of is the need to breathe again. I would trade my soul to breathe one last time.
I stand up and shake off as much snow as I can. My ankle hurts again. I cannot feel the splinters anymore. I look up to see four horses huddled together, waiting for me to open the gate. I open it, and they hastily exit the field. Their eyes are wide with some strange emotion I do not entirely recognize. I look back to field. There is a crater in the snow where the ground is visible. There are tufts of black. Blades of grass in the dark or patches of hair against the white. The crater begins to fill in. The black is gone. I shut the gate to the field, and walk away. I move quickly to get inside and away from the cold. The horses trot ahead, already entering the stable.
I close the sliding door behind me. One at a time I take each of the horses by the neck and lead them into the four empty stalls. All stalls occupied, I switch off the lights. The humming ceases. I step out into the cold and close the doors behind me. I trudge up the hill in darkness, surrounded by the whisper of the crumbling ghost machine.
I look down at the stable through the window and wonder what I was thinking and what happened, or is still happening. I was afraid of dying. And I saw things. I was very cold and weak, and my head was spinning. I am put together now. I have no black horse, I am sane and strong. I am not as young as I was once. Now in the warmth of this house, I am not as young as I was down at the stable, and my older self knows I had plenty left to give.
I close the blinds. We are frightened creatures. Always.