werewolf -v- horse

boo!!
Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhrghhhhh.

Ouch!

Get off of me you silly mare.

No.

I cannot carry you to safety.

Why?

Because you weigh 750 kilos to my 55 kilos and you are not made of easily foldable material.

And because I am considerably shorter than you so even if I did deign to pick you up it would make bugger all of a difference. Your feet would still be on the floor.

You can plead all you like and make big frightened eyes at me all day but I am not picking you up.

I know I carry that blonde dog. But it is not the same thing. He is old. He chases chickens and then tries to gum them to death. Anyway, there is nothing there…

. . . or is there?

And that is my point.

Just because we can’t see, smell or hear as well as a prey animal we assume they are ‘talking’ bollocks. But they have been on this planet in one form or another for 55 million years compared to our rather pathetic 200,000 years.

I think we can assume they know their way around a little better than we do. We are simply tourists in comparison.

If they say a family of werewolves lives in the 4th house on the left then it probably does. We may say hello to them in the supermarket and occasionally wonder why their trolley is devoid of vegetables but our horses see them of an evening doing stretching exercises and warm-up lunges before hideously contorting themselves in a very non-yoga sort of way.

No wonder horses worry about being eaten. I worry about it too now.

To the point, I developed a theory. A werewolf theory, in fact.

Have you noticed the lack of children in rural France? That is because they are away in a werewolf school.

I even wrote a poem about it:

growl
growl
snarl, snarl
chomp! chomp!
I’m a baby werewolf out on a romp
I went through the transformation
and it hurt a little bit
but nothing in comparison to having my first shit
JESUS !!
(they don’t tell you about that in werewolf school)
I attended Lycan Preparatory
prestigious and old
I had to wear a blazer
and do as I was told
I was given lots of information
purporting to prepare the future me
I’ve since experienced the gaping hole
in werewolf biology
(nowhere was it mentioned the digestive duration of red meat)
anyway
point is
chomp! chomp!
we have a right of passage when we reach thirteen
we’re allowed our first change and become snarly and mean
the mood change is not surprising when you consider the distortions
required to make a mythical animal of horrendous proportions
adrenaline then cortisol fuel the making of the beast
then the hunger takes over and we need to feast
(and that is where I made my rookie error)
simple mathematics makes it obvious now
that it’s not a good idea to devour a cow
killing and eating is no mean feat
when your repas is 1000 kilos of bone and meat
and there it settles into your magical belly
as you lope home, change and watch the telly
but three days later in human form
when the moon has waned into its lunar norm
you take your book and settle down on the loo
HAVE YOU TRIED SHITTING 1000 KILOS OF POO ?

Ok, mare!

On second thoughts, I will carry you home and give you a nice big cuddle. But you have to promise to “think thin” and make yourself as light as possible.

No.

You are not allowed to graze on the way. You will unbalance me more than I am already.  Hold your feet up. Like I used to have to do when Mother was vacuuming.

Vacuuming?

Sort of like poop-scooping but in the house. Ok. Yes. Mucking out. But not as smelly. Normally. Unless one of my brothers comes to visit.

Yes, the one who makes saddles out of dead cows. NOOO… cows. Never out of horses.

No.

Not out of the blonde dog either. He is barely big enough to make a noseband.

I began to fully empathise with the whole prey animal ethos when I started working at the vets. Being without motorised transport I had to set off on my mountain bike at 5am and cycle 13km through the dark country lanes with only my mobile phone for illumination.

Through the very lanes I had already decided were populated by big bitey wolf-like creatures and manically massive wild pigs. And possibly one or more vampires.

As it happened, for the most part, I only saw a variety of owls. And I did have several encounters with naughty pine martins who thought it hilarious to run out of the hedge and then run alongside the pushbike as close as they possibly could without getting squished.

The first time, I thought it was a coincidence but when the occurrence was repeated several times in exactly the same place I realised they were making a game of it.

They are bonkers little animals. I got really good at cycling at 30kph downhill while angling the phone to light up their boundingly boinging antics. Beautifully naughty.

And a perfect respite from the ever-present fear that would make me cycle almost to Tour de France standards. Where is the werewolf??

Imagine. You are all alone. Well, apart from being surrounded by prancing Disney creatures.

All alone. In the dark. In the outside. Wilderness all about. Knowing that decades of living in the countryside will never prepare you for what is really following you.

You can sense it lurking.

You can’t see it but you know it is there. And what is worse it might not be a werewolf. You live in the sort of area that even thinking the tune Jeepers Creepers will convince you a gigantic flying monster is going to pick you and your bike up into the air by its talons and fly you away to its underground lair and flail the skin from your bones and…

Anyway.

Being a prey animal is not nice. Be kind to your horse and never be so horrid as to keep her/him all on her/his own. Half of every day is night. And half of every night is full of terror.

There, there dear. We are home now. Yes. Home. Yes, you can bite the shitland pony. But we use the term shetland in polite society.

I know. I know. I promise to destroy all butterflies before we go out again. And red leaves. No. I am sorry. White van drivers are beyond me at present but I am working on it.

Go to sleep baby girl. Mummy promises to figure out how to become an all-avenging super-human/psuedo-horse by tomorrow.

Yes. If all else fails I will at least buy fresh carrots. No. I will not kill the blonde dog. He is 17. Time is on your side.

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