You know, I was never much of a rider. I wanted to be, I’d bought that fancy emerald-green velvet helmet to wear with big tall black leather boots, when I’d go ride on a borrowed horse across a two-mile course of countryside, mostly pastures dotted with cow manure and occasional maple groves. I liked the quiet of it, the rocking motion of the horse beneath me, my Three Socks, who of course had three legs dipped in white, and one the same smooth cocoa brown as the rest of her stocky frame. She wasn’t actually mine, I know. But I felt like I knew her, and she knew me.
The long rides were peaceful, meditative. I’d let her do most of the work, she knew where to go, it was her territory (and the other young riders who came in between my visits to the stables, also to ride). Sometimes I was jealous, I wanted to own her, I wanted her to be my horse, and mine alone. But we didn’t have enough money for that. I was lucky to be getting lessons at all.
It was getting to the point where I was supposed to be advancing. I was supposed to be galloping and jumping. Maybe this was some passion to commit to, something that by some far stretch of the imagination could somehow end up meaning more money for us when I got older. In the ring, with the instructor, we learned posting, me, rising up and down, out of the saddle, like the English riders on television, and it made my thighs hurt, and it felt oddly sexual, and I didn’t see the actual purpose for it, so I could never quite get in sync with Three Socks. It would make us both frustrated. Neither of us much wanted to be watched or forced to perform, at least, I knew I didn’t.
But when we went for the cool down rides across the pastures, I didn’t have to post. I could just breath in the crisp fall air, look off at the distant horizon, or the patterns of the clouds above. I could listen for the birds and insects, and the soft snorts of Three Socks’ breathing, or the sweet sound of the swish of her tail. When we were done, I’d carefully take off her saddle and tackle back in her stall, give her a good stiff-bristled brush down, a bucket of water and some sliced red apple, and run my fingers through her brackish black tail. Somedays we’d both love this ritual, but others, one or the other of us would be impatient, annoyed, and just want the whole thing to be over and get on with our separate lives.
“Whoa!” I said, sputtering, as Three Socks reared and jagged. It happened all at once. I didn’t even see what spooked her. Was it a snake? Or a bird, taking flight?
All I knew is that she was running now. Not just the canter, that fox-trot type of running that I was almost good at, but the gallop…I could feel the weightless peak of the gait when all four legs were coming off the ground, and she was flying, we were flying, a thousand pounds of power through the air…defying gravity. I was terrified, untrusting, fighting her for control, trying to calm her down, trying to calm me down, when I saw the brushy knoll approaching.
BANG.
I took a branch, full speed, right to the solar plexus. Knocked me clean off Three Socks, who kept running on, through the dense forest, off the path, I don’t know where. I was laying on the ground, on my back. The wind totally knocked out of me. For that brief moment, you wonder, “am I dead? Am I going to be able to breathe again? What if I try, and I can’t?” Your whole life starts to get evaluated. And you just have to say to yourself, “Come on, Lil. Put on your big girl panties and just breathe, for Christ’s sake.” And I did.
“Hey, you okay there?”
I saw her coming toward me, with the late afternoon sunlight streaming through her soft Nordic blonde hair from behind. Her face was shadowed, and I couldn’t tell at first if I knew her or not. I felt like she was someone I knew, but I couldn’t quite place it. I was also starting to hurt in my back and hip where I had fallen, my ribs felt split, and hadn’t quite remembered yet how to inhale.
“You took a pretty hard fall there. You know, people can die from galloping into trees.”
“Yes, right. I’ve heard that. Thanks for reminding me.”
“You were fighting with your horse. You can’t fight with the horse, you know. That will get you nowhere.”
I didn’t know what to say about that, as I was tired of being corrected about the way I was riding horses. But there was something about the way she said the way “nowhere” that made me realize just how far off the path we had gone.
“Did you see where Three Socks went? My horse?”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t.”
“But you saw me fall?”
“No, not exactly. I heard you, so I came.”
“You live around here? I don’t remember seeing you at the stables before.”
“No, not really. Here,” she said, having deftly slipped off her horse, a dappled white stallion, and reached down a hand to help me get up. I took it and was blown away by her strength as she gave me a quick yank and I snapped up on my own two feet. I hesitated for a minute, unsure and a little dizzy, then thought to brush off my pants and shirt sleeves, straighten my riding helmet, and size up the situation.
“Thank you,” I said, still not sure if I should be acting like a friend or a stranger to her. Her face was chiseled, pointy chin and cheeks, a small straight nose, and prism blue eyes. She was older than me, maybe twice my age. An adult.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” She said.
“No, no, of course I do,” I lied.
“That’s okay,” she said. “It makes sense that you wouldn’t.”
The sadness darkened us when she said that, but I didn’t want to press. I was embarrassed and didn’t want the details, at least, not at that moment.
“Come on, we’ll help you find Three Socks,” she said, grabbing the reins of her ride, and starting through the thick dry vegetation. “Follow me.” But she moved too fast and slipped out of my view.
“What is this place?” I said, hoping my voice would slow her down, get her to wait.
“Someplace you shouldn’t be,” she called back, although I could not see her. All in front of me were low branches and high grass, ferns, and vines.
“Don’t feel sorry for yourself,” she said. “You just gotta get back on your horse, and ride.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m hurt!” I said, although it wasn’t enough to keep me from struggling through the jungle woodland.
“You don’t know what pain is,” she said. “At least, not yet.”
“What do you mean by that,” I said, growing irritated that I could not see her, and didn’t like this game she seemed to be playing with me.
“Nothing, nothing. I just mean, you’re still young. You’ll heal.” And with that, she popped out of a nearby thicket, a little twinkle in her eye. “Look who I found.” And she pulled on the reins, and there was Three Socks, looking a little sheepish for having run away, but willing to make quick amends if I was willing. Which I was.
“Hey, girl!” I rushed to her, snuggling up to her neck and petting her nose. “What the heck happened out there. Did you see a ghost?”
With that, my rescuer stepped back, almost as if found out. I sneaked a little side glance towards her, and she seemed to be wrestling with a decision, wanting to say something, but not confident that she should.
“Look,” she said, squaring herself to me. “There will come a day, when you will know who I am. And I can’t tell you much, but want I want you to remember, is that this is not the only reality that you are living in, right now. In fact, right now, you are not in your reality at all, you are mine.”
“Uh,” I said, because that was before I got interested in all this stuff, after I met her. See, here is where things start to fall in on themselves, when I start to lose track, where the narrative falls apart. I must have gotten back to the stable, you know. Somehow, I came home.
But I’m telling you this now, because I think I finally got it, you know?
I wish they would turn off that machine, the beeping is driving me crazy.
What I think she meant, at that point, was that there are different universes, and that in some universe, there is another me, that is still able to ride horses, whose pasture is uncleared and full of brambles, and whose medicine has a cure for this terrible disease that is killing me. I think she came to me on that day, the day right before I was diagnosed, to give me some kind of comfort, some kind of hope. Maybe she’s a scientist, who knows how to communicate across the fabric of spacetime. Because she knew that I — that we — are going to die. She was me.
I am dying, Mother.
Soon.
Please, don’t cry. It’s okay, you know?
Because somewhere, in some other reality, you have to believe me, that there, I will live on to have a full adult life, a beautiful, strong, brave, smart woman, who can ride horses any way I want.
End