gifthorse glue.

This is my love letter to England.

Her step-father was a broken man from the get go. Small hands. He built sheds with sand. His ambition never rose as far as castles. Castles were a mugs game. Start small and stay small. These sheds fell short of renaissance. The subtle edges were accidental and beautiful.

Her mother was a poet. She never went anywhere. Not as far as an imagination. Nowhere. How the two met is a mystery. Not to them, obviously. But to the world. An enigma not worth unfolding. The effort would not be rewarded. The story would be short and plain. The ugly runt.

Her birth was a miracle. Not in the Jesus sense. The ‘why’ sense. The child was born to apathetic applause. I witnessed from a distance. I cared little. This child was no different to your child. Not worth the story. At three she drowned. At four she repeated the act. At five she didn’t. etc.

He bought her a horse. It was ugly. I hated it. She hated it. etc. He thought it was beautiful. Her mother was indifferent. Her mother was always indifferent. Even when she drank the poison. She died. etc. The horse was long in the tooth. As the expression goes. Its eyes didn’t work.

My grand-father was a mechanic. My grand-mother was a loving lady. My father works with life and death. My mother works with knowledge.

The horse had no name. It didn’t require one.

We broke a cathedrals window. Once. Never again. I hated breaking the faces of saints. It filled me with a silent terror. It fills me to this day. She giggled. I hated her. She couldn’t have been more than five. Still. No excuse. St John is crying.

Glue has various properties. And uses.

He punched her in the lip. Hard. Hard enough to sting. Hard enough to break flesh. And chip bone. Hard enough to make her cry. Hard enough to make me cry. Hard enough to make her mother drink poison. Hard enough to not make the glue work.

I never punched her step-father.

I should have.

He walked with a limp. It was for effect. I’m not sure what effect. But for effect all the same. It was only a slight limp. People felt sorry for him. I’ve no idea why. I didn’t. She didn’t.

She put a ribbon on the horse. To spruce it up somewhat. It was a blue and gold ribbon. Like it makes a difference. Appearance is everything. Especially if you are a horse. The elastic holding it together was due to go at any minute. Everything has a shelf life. Some lives are just shorter than others.

I got the job in the glue factory through a relative. My parents wanted me out of the house. They said I needed money. I said I was fine in poverty. They didn’t agree. I wanted to spend the summer dreaming and smoking. And drinking. And dreaming.

I started around May time. Late spring. Flowers in blossom. Kids throwing bricks onto the motorway. That kind of thing. I wore my best shoes. The factory was well kept. The owner was pleasant. I hated it. The job was monotonous. Horse in. Glue out. Day in. Day out. I never said a word.

I got by. The hours were fine. The minutes were tedious. The company was lacklustre. The money was enough.

I got sacked for being drunk. I wasn’t. Perhaps a little. It was a poor reason. I was a good worker. I did my hours. I did my work. Drank in the middle. Drunk at the end. I held my head high. I kept my hands out of my pockets.

She watched me smoke cigarettes. I told her not to. I didn’t like to think of the consequence. I didn’t like to smoke. I had no money. I’d been fired. I was living in a field. A hippies dream. A real life nightmare. The sun on my back didn’t warm my soul. I was lonely and had only the company of a six year old. She was poor company.

I shared my field with the horse. The company wasn’t an improvement.

I shared dreams with that horse. Petty dreams. But dreams all the same. I don’t know what they say. I can never hear them. I try to listen but it breaks my heart to. And I don’t work well on a broken heart. I don’t know anyone that does. I imagine he dreamt too. He’d leave silent tears on the hay. Not in a poetic way. He had trouble with his eyes.

The horse was mild mannered. As far as I could tell. He never did me any harm. Nor did I do him any him. It was the fanciful relationship that we all hope to attain one day. I guess that this was my one day. I imagined it a poor marriage. Him not speaking to me. Me drunk in the grass. We got along like a horse and cart.

A great man once said. ‘all great things must come to an end’. That great man is dead. Rotting in a grave somewhere. The sun beats a strange shade of irony on days like today.

The girl was a brat. The kind that not even an young soul could get along with. It was only a matter of time before the horse lost her attention. This saddened me. Most things do. I guess it was just another day at the office. My office was stained in blood.

Of course my office was no longer the abattoir. It was a moon grey field. Filled with nothing. But myself and an ugly horse for company. The sun rises sometimes.

The girl paid me in stolen cigarettes. And a repulsive smile. I hated myself. She didn’t even have to bring the horse with her. I was with him all along. I don’t know why I did it. The money wasn’t great.

I drank first. Of course. It was the only courage I had. A small bottle at that. Not even enough to see double. I used an old gun I had bought off a travelling salesman. Real jumpy type. The kind who doesn’t lose a fist fight. I didn’t want a fist fight. I barely wanted a gun. Win some. Lose some.

I put the gun to his head. With the restrain of an unsteady hand. I pulled the trigger. I took the smokes.

I never saw the girl again. I never wanted to. I never found out why she needed the glue. I never wanted to. I’ll still remember that smile. Broken teeth. I still have dreams about the horse. Regret doesn’t pass easy.

I moved to a different town.