Equus

My Equus, my beast of pos­ses­sion, my trus­ted means of hunt­ing down my obses­sions. The four-legged hurd­ler who never stopped hurt­ling, who rev­elled in the pur­suit, who could be let loose on a moment’s whim to race my each and every all-consuming need, desire and deprav­ity to the point on the dis­tant hori­zon where the thoughts were too dark and the heart beat too fast, where real­ity blurred as my pulse over-clocked.

My char­ger had an unerr­ing equine instinct for the dir­ec­tion in which my indul­gent flights of fancy too often lured me. The flames of the fire would lick at the base of its gleam­ing eyes as it was sud­denly seized by the need to run free, leav­ing me almost in its wake were it not for my hands seiz­ing the reins for dear life, the leather burn­ing through the creases in my tightly gripped palms. It had no care for my gasp­ing breaths, and neither did I. The exhil­ar­a­tion was too much to res­ist, and my senses lost out to everything but the rhythm of the chase and the scent of the sweat on the skin of my steed. One nudge of the spurs, and we were off. Gone. Depar­ted into dust clouds. The rider and the rid­den each lost in their own thousand-yard stare, yet united in a desire to be con­sumed by the prom­ise that would surely lie in the bright beyond.

It couldn’t last. We were push­ing the lim­its, for­cing ourselves down tracks that had been long for­got­ten — though with good reason, because they were far too pre­cari­ous to be fol­lowed. Crazed and cap­tiv­ated, we sped towards fences that looked too fear­some to leap, where a wrongly placed hoof could spell cer­tain dis­aster. And often did.

Now, with my senses dulled and my mind emp­tied, and as I cast my eyes around for the someone or the some­thing to grab me and trans­port from here to the great else­where, I regret how I gal­loped that poor animal into the ground. I took it in an unerr­ing line from spir­ited stal­lion to old nag, from rip­pling muscles and sinews to mere flesh and bone, until its ribs rose from its tired skin as if a rusty radi­ator had formed along the once majestic lines of its back.

I had to resort to blind­ing the beast. Spiked its eyes. Felt the blood gush. It seemed like the only way. The only way I could ima­gine ever being able to well and truly bury my ever-present obses­sions was to rob the animal of its sight, because even though its frame was weak and used, sunken and bruised, it would still plead with me to har­ness it, kick my gleam­ing spurs with force into its sides, and set it gal­lop­ing one more time. Just once more.

My Equus, you never ceased in your belief that even though my single-minded haunt­ing led us both into the pitch black, we would always reach the light on the other side. That we would always arrive at some final rev­el­a­tion. That with the wind tousling my hair and the snatched breaths press­ing and stretch­ing my lungs — too full, too full, too full to burst­ing — it could never be less than right, even whilst it felt so very wrong.

Today, I am cold. Cold, hard-faced and thick-skinned as I lead you from your stable one last time. You served me well, my Equus. You took me where I wanted to go even whilst I denied the inher­ent truths inhab­it­ing those des­per­ate, far-flung des­tin­a­tions. but here I stand about to betray you in the cruellest, blood­i­est way. Needs must, because self-preservation has become my raison d’être. I wrap, I cos­set, I nur­ture my basic sur­vival instinct, and you are pay­ing the ulti­mate price for my reasoned, cal­cu­lated selfishness.

I will hide you, will pro­tect you. Won’t let any­one take you away. You’re mine and mine and mine forever, though your part has been played. This role was always going to be finite, by neces­sity. No longer can I let you carry me into the dawn mists chan­nel­ling low over the deser­ted moors. No more and never again. Obses­sions must kill or be killed.

I place my hand at your mouth and feel the damp warmth of your final breath, before pulling the pis­tol from my pocket in one fluid move­ment and calmly fir­ing a sol­it­ary bul­let into the side of your once noble skull.

As you fall, becom­ing one with the dusty earth, my part­ing whis­per glances across your right ear. Listen to the last words you will ever hear. “Allow me to show you, the way which I adore you.”

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