She woke as dawn cracked open a wet and rainstormed morning. Her clogs hit soggy peanutbutter and jelly colored leaves beneath them. Her scarf struggled to keep her hair from soaking through as she meandered down the long tree lined stretch of saturated Fall branches. She wore sun-glasses despite the dark morning weather and beads of droplets dripping--most likely to keep her sensual experience of this intimately burnt season a secret from the few umbrellaed passersby. Grabbing cold coconut coffee, knee-high leather boots, and an oversized slicker, she hit the highway.
Almost an hour later, in the company of only the slow Sunday morning highway of steamy fog, she felt that she could somehow relate to the sloshing wipers. She frankly couldn't blame them for dodging back and forth so quickly--unable to choose which side of the windshield they preferred. The rain would keep coming regardless, and their confusion was actually making her view the path more clearly.
Her dreamy and surprisingly apathetic indecision vanished as the Farm loomed via left.
Swerving slowly past the old sign post, the car slumped along the uneven road--into holes the size of kitchen pots, and out again. The horses came into view--standing like proud stewards with rain-blankets waving quietly in the wet wind, as if to welcome and wave a newcomer into their bucolic domain.
Mid-October means Halloween looms. This year, the hay-eating wide-eyed mares and their men will rise above the gray-goats, black-bunnies, and calico-chickens with unnatural, yet eerily magnificent costumes of paint and picture. Ultimately, the horses will make a choice. Their identities for the coming Holiday will be revealed. Clarity will come. They will pick out the paints, dyes, ribbons, bows, and most importantly those important strokes of change. The strokes that will rid the horse of the quotidien, and let it find its true colors. If only for a matter of measured moments.
Tousled manes will be tidied. Symbols of their spirit will be rendered on briskly brushed hides. The horses that this morning shiver as chilled, discontent, drenched, and lonely--perhaps waiting for days for their owners to unharness their chains and let them be wild once again--will shine extravagantly in glory come All-Hallow's Eve.
Plush paints of gold, blue, and all varieties of rainbow flavors, will mold musings into the raw ancient symbols or candied carousel decal that will come to cover the horses. They will find a facade that masks their feathery fear and fly through any obstacle without hesitation. They will jump the humps with reckless abandon and feel content in that mask of sheer confidence that comes with hiding behind a shell of silver linings. Their dazzling horseshoes are nailed in tight and hurt like crazy--but golly, what air those animals can accrue as a result of that painful process. For all this and more, the crowds will love them. The miracles here are manifested in mere moments, with stunningly perfect plays of paint.
Time drags on, and the carousel begins to slow down its spin. The carnival music skips and then haltingly stops humming. The humans one-by-one exit the ride of amusement to go home, leaving the glorious painted ponies standing solo in their stall.
The horses will soon be boarded up and bored again, but with slight splattered remnants of the festivities still dripping off as sweat and fatigue overcome their muscular bodies--spent from showing the world their stuff. Their tongues will drag and their nuzzling noses will look for the hands that had patted them with such novel admiration and offered their chomping mouths countless chewing carrots just hours before.
Now, no hands will come through the iron bars of their caged wooden homes. Night will come, and the magic of the painted ponies will vanish as November 1st hits. All Sinners of the Saints' Day will be gone from Procter Hill and long on their way down the country road. Perhaps purchasing a peach pie, pumpkin, or bag of apples from the stand further down towards town. Satiating their newest hunger for harvest happiness and material glee.
The fog, the mud, and the hay are washed off her boots when she arrives home that night with sore feet. She takes her sunglasses and scarf off. She washes her make-up off from the night before.
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