WHAT IT IS
Hobbson’s spirit horse,now tormented with arthritis and wracked with the pain of frequent neglect, slowly hobbled behind the man that would be both his executioner and liberator. The animal bristled at the thought of a stroll down memory lane where the pleasant memories of youth were an exaggerated plastering of delights for dimmer minds to behold half truths, false memories, and deliberately embellished exploits. His plan was to enlist the strategies of equality, those ancient pillars of consideration that lingered more heavily than the trivial proclamations of a mask, a mandate, a misunderstanding. It was not his wish to stand behind the myth of the self as the only true choice for freedom while the freedom of the other was trampled by the righteous, out for gluttonous revenge for perceived infringements. This avalanche of bourgeois entitlement, sending poor expendable slobs to do their bidding, is older and sadder than the ground the elites hold title to, title that started all this in the first place. In his dark sunken eyes, the spirit horse detected the depraved pleasure some receive from the anarchy, the lawlessness, the pathetically principled smoke eaters looking into frightened eyes to shore up themselves. When it was all said and done, it is the irreconcilable inmates that will walk in their own footsteps to the grandiose mirror reflecting a world a little less friendly, a little more fearful.
For his part, Hobbson knew the horse was a composite of sun and sky, of earth and rock and the sum of all it had witnessed and disavowed. He felt uncomfortable with it’s age, it’s fragility, it’s wisdom and most of all the image glistening back from the grandiose mirror. Their fate braided, Hobbson led the horse to their final resting place and waited for the others to come.
WHAT IT IS NOT
Hammer walked with purpose, his sabatons growling at the gravel beneath his feet, as he traversed the abandoned county roads of Missouri looking for Feather, looking for Revenge, looking for anything to relieve the gnarling doubt that infected his being. His doubt vacillated between what the other side saw and what his side knew, and all the infectious righteousness of conversing with the other side was not going to make the mountain easier to climb or soothe the dismantled families flung into the winds of torture and war. Growing tired of these partisanships, Hammer remembered simpler times, where denial and innocence was the bed of a good nights sleep and the morning breakfast dripped with ethically sourced coffee and the eggs were laid by free run chickens…and we smiled the smile of the contented, not knowing what any of it meant. Hammer would visit this state, bask in its delirium for a moment before returning to the hamster wheel that was his world.
Little Mr. Dickens studied the knight like a wizard might puzzle over an unfamiliar potion, cocking his curious head from side to side until an observant translucent man drew the line between bird and warrior. In the instant before greetings were sloshed around, the translucent man lifted the knight’s burden, restoring his right to exercise what was right and what was wrong. Stopping the hamster wheel, Hammer greeted Feather with gusto and drew an arrow in the gravel road, pointing in the direction of the other side.
WHAT IT IS/WHAT IT IS NOT 