Her nostrils flared as she clomped her hoof into the loose sand moving the grains about with no outcome expected. She shook her mane and the bleached hair moved like liquid lightning on either side of her long head. Lifting her eyes up to the sky she stared at the round white disc of the sun, so bright it made the sky chalk white. Her body was so scorched that it no longer had color. The relentless sun ever so slowly made its way across the sky. Her body tried to shake off the afternoon heat and beads of sweat went flying into the sand sizzling and they evaporated as they hit.
She closed her eyes and felt the heat blurring the edges between her and the sand. She snorted and pounded what should be ground, swished her tail in dismay, reared up to the sky and cried out in the only voice she had announcing her rage at that day, at all days. Then she began to gallop. Not walk, trot or canter. She ran sinking in sand as she climbed the dunes of the desert making her way up and down the hills. Waves of heat were vibrating all around her. The edges of her body kept shifting, fading and still she ran. There was no destination, no hope. Only the constant, enduring pounding of hooves sliding down the dunes only to bound up yet another hill to nowhere.
Cindy saw her from a distance. A purple shadow extending down from each of her four hooves creating an exaggerated version of her elegant shape as she lunged forward again and again into the bright, white landscape empty but yet filled with the heat of the afternoon. Cindy was fascinated, seeing this beast randomly flailing about without purpose or path. She stood very still and called out to the half demented white on white creature. CindySleigh silently called to the horse with her arms reaching out in front of her, straight and forward. She willed with all her heart...come to me.
She turned her head and shook her mane and met Cindy with a blue eye that bore in it all emotions. They were the swords of her state of mind. Cindy returned her piercing stare with unblinking but diffuse gray eyes of her own. CindySleigh kept her arms stretched far out in front of her and in that quiet eternity she beckoned her to come, she pleaded her to come and she commanded her to come. An invisible tunnel was between them for though they were separate, they were one.
The Bleached Horse could hear the silent calling of CindySleigh. She tried to shake off Cindy's stare. She reared up yet again, letting her voice and body express the rage that kept her moving without destination. Ghostly lines surrounded The Bleached Horse, blurring her edges with waves of heat. She faced Cindy and cried out against her loving command. When her hooves hit the ground she found herself galloping at full speed towards Cindy's open arms. The sand under her shifted as if to help her. Like the splitting of the sea the sand pulled away from her on either side to make her way truly clear.
Cindy began to panic. This horse must weigh in at fifteen hundred pounds and was headed straight for her. She was sure this horse from hell was going to run her down and just keep on going but Cindy did not move one inch from where she stood and her arms were open as if for an embrace. Time moved. The sun had made its journey and now was low on the horizon creating a brilliant fuchsia-orange light across the dunes. the shadows were deep as the night that was approaching as quickly as the horse was running. Cindy was sweating from the heat of the moment with great fear and anticipation.
As if in slow motion, as the uppermost arc of the sun disappeared below the horizon line the lapis lazuli blues of twilight appeared. The time when all white turns different shades bluer than blue. The stars were beginning to make their appearance known, even though they shine just as brightly during the day repeating what we see and do not see but is always there. All this in the few seconds of the bounding horse and a woman standing, frozen in her spot, hands forward, shaking slightly, wondering the where, how and why of all.
The Bleached Horse stopped immediately in front of CindySleigh with its head dipped down so she would be between Cindy's arms. The sand billowed around them both making clouds of light blue that floated around the two of them and through them making them seem a little less solid, a little less real. Cindy tilted her head back and forth slowly so she could see the eyes of the horse on either side of her head. One eye was palest blue and the other the black of a moonless night. The blue eye showed Cindy a reflection of the confusion and disarray of her past life. A mirror with the illusion of reality, even though reversed, like theater presenting itself as truth. Then Cindy tilted the other way and looked into the black eye of the horse for what seemed a very long time. CindySleigh was pulled into the space which seemed a vortex to a possible world she could feel but could not see. The black eye was like a vacuum pulling Cindy into the unknown.
The Bleached Horse stomped its front hooves and Cindy stomped her feet in return. She shook her mane and snorted and Cindy shook her white head of hair and laughed. The dust died down and they were left with the night and the stars and each other. CindySleigh walked over and very gently patted the horses back. A shiver ran down both of their spines. Cindy took her brush and began to methodically brush The Bleached Horse. She brushed the hair from her eyes, she brushed the sweat from her brow and she brushed the sand from her coat. Cindy plaited her tail into a braid as one might a child, a four legged one that towers over you but raw and innocent in all its emotions. Cindy looked into the blue eye of The Bleached Horse and revisited her past with bewilderment. Cindy then switched to the other eye finding the black vision leading to a place of solace and peace. "Thank you for coming to me," she said out loud for CindySleigh had been missing her rage and terror and ecstasy and love in the desert for a very long time.
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