A Horses Tale ~ Joy Elaine

[ForbiddenJoy]

A Horse's Tale

By: Joy Elaine
        

Sarah stood at the kitchen sink washing the morning breakfast dishes. Out of the window she could see the overgrown, neglected fields of their small farm.

“Ned, are you going to work in the fields today!?!.

Ned wandered into the kitchen scratching his head as he yawned.

“Why do you always nag me. I will take care of the fields when I get around to it.”

Sarah had heard those words many times before, but the fields were still not taken care of and the birds had began to make themselves at home eating the corn from the tall stalks.

Ned told Sarah he would definitely go work in the fields today. Ned dressed slowly and wandered out the door. Sarah finished up the breakfast dishes and began to mix the bread dough, and set it aside to allow it to rise. She noticed it was very quiet outside, and she could hear the birds chirping and singing to one another. She stepped outside to see what Ned was doing.

She was stunned to see her husband Ned in the fields on his hands and knees. He was nibbling away at the grass along the edge of the corn fields.

“Ned!!! Have you lost your mind?

Ned replied, “I’m not Ned; I am a horse.”

“You’re not funny Ned, if you don’t get up right now I will call Dr. Baker and have him come take care of you.”

Ned let out a loud whinny and looked at his wife, daring her to follow up on her threat. Sarah stomped back into the house angrily. She looked out the window and Ned was still in the field on his hands and knees. She would teach him – she picked up the telephone and called Dr. Baker.

“Hello? Dr. Baker? Ned is acting strangely this morning. He is in the fields eating grass and claims he is a horse.”

Dr. Baker calmed Sarah down and told her he would be right there. It wasn’t long that Sarah heard a knock on the door.

“Dr. Baker! I am so happy to see you. Follow me, Ned is out back eating the grass.”

Sarah dried her hands on her apron and led Dr. Baker out the back door and into the fields.

“He is right over here,” and she pointed to where she had seen Ned. Dr. Baker followed the direction of her finger and looked over at the field.

“Sarah have you been nipping at the cooking sherry today?”

“I have not!” Sarah looked over at the field and saw a large gray horse wearing Ned’s hat.

“Come, come Sarah.” Dr. Baker took Sarah’s arm and led her to his buggy at the front of the house. “We will get you fixed up in no time. I will send a message to Ned so he won’t worry.”

Just then the old, gray horse whinnied and nodded his head. It appeared to Dr. Baker that the old horse was smiling.

Dr. Baker helped Sarah into his buggy and drove away.

© Joy Elaine – October 28, 2005

[Ben]

Hi Joy,

An interesting "tale" you've got there!

This looks like a good start but you need to give us more detail and an explanation (or at least more of a hint) as to what is actually happening.

Did he simply trick his wife and place a hat on a horse after her phone call. Did he turn into a horse? Does she even have a husband at all? Could this be her imagination or a mental abberration as the doctor suspects? Was the doctor real?

If you want to leave the reader unsure then you might need to provide more clues (which could to some extent contradict themselves in the story and thus create doubt about what actually happened). At present there just isn't enough information to really guess at what was actually happening.

Maybe the horse keeps pace with them along the fenceline, and then as they leave the driveway and turn onto the road the last thing she sees is her husband standing by the fence waving to her.

Maybe as she's heading up the driveway she looks back and is suprised that she can't see the farmhouse.

Maybe she makes Ned a cup of tea early on to try and get him motivated and out into the fields. He takes a sip and screws up his face, then adds 5 or 6 cubes of sugar, how odd, he's never done that before...

You've done a good job of creating mystery, but I think you just need to give the reader a few more clues about what is actually happening.

*smile*

[pjuliancassidy]

I love that story. 
+2 Karma    Patrick

[ForbiddenJoy]

Wow Ben. I wrote it just as a joke, many of my writings started out that way or as dares from conversations I had in college.

Norman requested a story about a man turning into a horse in a game on my forum. I looked all night and couldn't find one. I hate to lose. lol

Another friend said why not write your own story. So I got to thinking, he didn't specify who's story so really it wasn't cheating. So I wrote it and uploaded it to my site.

I hadn't put that much thought it into it. I assumed that somehow the husband did indeed turn into a horse in spite to have his wife sent off to the looney farm, but now that you mentioned all those other ideas I rather like that perhaps she is crazy and doesn't really have a husband and the doctor is just humoring her.

I do believe one's work is never a finished project. I know this one definately wasn't. Now you have all kinds of thoughts floating around in my head.

[Hannah]

G'day Joy
It really is an interesting story. Full of fun, which I like. I did wonder what I was meant to take from it. Not that every piece of writing has to be saying something. You are entertaining and that's wonderful. I can see from your comments that you didn't have a particular plan or audience in mind when you wrote it, so that probably explains many of the things Ben commented on. I agree with him. At the moment, it's hard to know what is going on and that means that a reader won't care about the character. That's fine when you just want to create a bit of whimsy. If you want to go further with a story, then it needs a little more direction for the reader. That doesn't mean that you have to spell everything out, or even have a definite or defined expose of what is going on. But, if you use more clues, as Ben suggested, the reader will take it where they want it to go and be quite satisfied. And a story can be whimisical, as your story is, without being little more than whimsy. I hope that last sentence makes sense! 
Look forward to reading more of your writing. I like your style.
Hannah (and did you win the bet? I'm assuming you did)

[Hannah]

Oh, I forgot! Congrats on being the first member to post a short story! Woo hoo!