The horse's tale
Timothy L.
Friday, April 11, 2003

	I woke up one morning and felt that something was 
wrong.  It just...wasn't right, somehow...
	I knew I was in a strange place (don't ask me how), 
and my body felt...odd.  I tried to whinny to myself, you 
know: for comfort.  But it came out all wrong: 
"Don'tworryittlbealrightjustyouwatch-" I had to stop.  I 
shouldn't be making those noises, anymore than you should 
meow like a cat, or sing like a slug (and yes, they do 
sing, you just have to listen).
	I was a good, steady horse.  I had a firm back, a 
bushy mane, and a good head of teeth; I had good breeding!  
This couldn't be happening to me.
	Then the door opened.  I rolled over on the floor and 
watched a pair of pointed shoes shuffle through the door.  
I didn't look up -- for some reason, my neck felt shorter, 
somehow.  "G'wan.  Gettup.  Y'r new m'sters're here.  Y'r 
bought'n'paidfor" the shoes said -- or, rather, their owner 
said.  He had a tendency to lump words together, as if he 
were afraid they would get lost.
	I tried to marshal my limbs into some form of order, 
but they just flailed about.  I hit my hand on the stones 
of the floor; it hurt.  Now, there was something odd -- 
well, not that it hurt, but-
	"Lemme'elp ye t'y'r feet."  There was something odd in 
that, too.  In fact, this whole business of standing up 
seemed a bit on the odd side.  For one thing, my legs 
didn't seem to be jointed in the right places; and, there 
seemed to be two to few of them, too.
	The man helped me to my feet (I didn't seem to recall 
feet being on the usual list of equine anatomy either).  
But my brain was a bit muzzy -- like that time I got into 
that field of fresh clover and gorged myself; I was 'muzzy' 
for a fortnight.  Why, once, I-
	-Promptly collapsed on the floor.  You see, what had 
happened while I had been going about the business of 
'lying down at a ninety-degree angle,' as I have heard it 
once put, I caught sight of a man standing on the other 
side of a window that was visible through the open door.  
Well, at least, I thought it was a man standing on the 
other side of a window.  While a part of my mind had been 
reminiscing, another part had slowly been coming to grips 
with the fact that, first of all, there was an exact twin 
of the man helping me up helping up the man in the window.  
It was, at the same time, having the thought beat into it 
that whenever the 'man in the window' moved, I moved too, 
and vice versa.  It is usually disconcerting to find that, 
after years of being a thoroughbred stallion -- winning 
awards, eating oats, siring a colt or two -- you are now a 
human being.  A Human!  And not one of their colts either, 
the nice little ones who say "nice horsey" and darn near 
jam a cube of sugar up your nose, but you lick their hand 
anyway because they are cute and don't know any better.  
No; I was a Man (although I do admit, a rather handsome 
one, for a human -- and they could have been really nasty 
and made me a woman.  Oh, nothing against them -- they are 
usually very nice -- but I'm sure you'd be just a bit upset 
if you went to bed a healthy stallion in his prime and woke 
up missing a certain part of your overall makeup, if you 
catch my driftwood, as the saying is.) and men are cruel.  
They whip you to make you go faster, and they yell when you 
can't, they cuss when you kick, and when you're too old, do 
they put you out to pasture?  No!  They send you to Dr. 
Tingle's Glue and Dog Food Factory.
	Well, at least I wouldn't have to worry about 
that...although I had heard (from the cat back home) that 
they are just as bad to each other as they are to us...I do 
seem to recall that there were some rather nice gentlemen, 
but I think it would be safe to say that they were treated 
even worse then us.
	But I couldn't think any more on this, and other 
cheery topics, at the time, because the man was tugging at 
my sleeve (and they put clothes on me!  The indignity!).  
Apparently, my "new m'sters" were waiting for me.  Mustn't 
keep the dears waiting, after all they did for me: who 
wouldn't appreciate being kidnapped from their nice warm 
stable -in the middle of the night, no less- and drugged, 
taken to a strange place, and changed into a human-just 
like them!  And they didn't even do a proper job of it: you 
could still tell that I had once been a horse -- they left 
just enough of my handsome muzzle to remind me how far I 
had fallen, and through no fault of my own.  Oh no, I 
mustn't keep them waiting.
	So I hitched up my pants (I had seen the Farmer do 
this when he went to talk to his Wife...although it didn't 
seem to help him much: he always left the Farmhouse with a 
"yes, Dear," and an "of course, Dear.") and began the 
interesting task of learning how to walk on two legs 
instead of four.  As a student walker, I must say I did 
rather well:  I only knocked over one priceless vase (I 
don't know why it was put on the side of the hallway...) 
and there were no more than thirty in that group of touring 
schoolchildren...but I digress.
	He stopped and led me into what must have been the 
front office for whatever place this was.  It was rather 
small; or, at least, it felt that way.  It was a short, 
wide room - like cows; to be more precise, like hamburger 
patties.  It was very brightly lit (probably to hide the 
fact that the paint was peeling and the floorboards 
splintered), but the light seemed to be absorbed by the 
three men waiting there.  All three of them dressed in 
black and were -like me- extremely tall.   They were also 
painfully thin, and appeared aristocratic.  One of them 
seemed to be moldering, and the other two were wearing 
thick, very thick, sunglasses, and hats with wide brims -- 
in addition to their eveningwear.
	"-- These'r'y'r new m'sters," said the man of the 
pointed shoes.  "Messers Morcol, Fletch," the two in 
sunglasses nodded sharply, "'n' Barinstoke," the moldering 
one smiled and lost a bit of his cheek.
	The cash register rang, as did the bell above the 
door.  I was glad to get out of that room -- my new legs 
were starting to get cramped from bending down so I 
wouldn't hit my head.  Why did they have to make me so 
tall?
	They walked purposefully to the curb and climbed into 
a waiting cab pulling me in after them -- probably so that 
I couldn't talk to the horses.  'Messers' Morcol and Fletch 
sat sulking on one side of the coach, while 'Mister' 
Barinstoke sat dozing and decomposing on the seat next to 
me.  I leaned against the other side of the coach lest I 
catch whatever disease he had.  We said hardly anything on 
the way to wherever we were going.  I was fairly bursting:  
why had they done this to me?  But I could tell from his 
look -even through the sunglasses- that Mister Morcol would 
tender no nonsense.  Indeed, he looked smug, as if he had 
just shown me a great honor.  Honor my mother's fetlocks!  
I just wanted to go back to my field -- was that such a 
hard request.  As if he thought he was reading my mind, 
Mister Morcol said that I would be working the day shift 
with Mister Barinstoke, whatever that meant.  Frankly, I 
had no clue.  Even more candidly, I did not care.  I just 
wanted to be a horse again!
* * *
	In a few minutes, the cab stopped and we all got out.  
In front of us was a rather large, lopsided, building.  It 
had a rather large, lopsided, door.  Above the door was a 
rather large, lopsided, sign, which said (in rather large, 
lopsided, letters):
 "The Law Offices of
Morcol, Fletch, and Barinstoke;
Attorneys at Law.

Narne's and Boble Booksellers,
Around the Back."

	"As I have said," said Mister Morcol (not knowing that 
I had half a mind to take that rather large, lopsided, sign 
and bring it down on his rather large head), "You will be 
working the day shift with Mister Barinstoke.  Seeing as to 
your previous...engagement, we won't expect you to know any 
law.  Instead, you will be our accountant.  I've heard 
horses are very good at math; and, besides, none of us are 
of any worth, whatsoever, when it comes to, er, 
calculations."
	"Yes," said Mister Fletch, "You vill to be our 
accountant, as horses are wery good at math, and ve aren't-
"
	"Why must you always summarize everything I say?" 
interrupted Mister Morcol.  "It's not as if I were speaking 
in some foreign tongue, and I dare say the boy can 
understand me -- he's not daft, well not as daft as you..."
	"We'd best get you inside, Flick: this will go on for 
a while, and when they get riled, there's bound to be some 
biting," said Mister Barinstoke, obviously trying to be 
friendly.
	"Biting?" I asked.
	"Hm?  Oh, yes; you see, my boy, we three are not your 
everyday sort of lawyers.  Mister Morcol and Mister Fletch 
are vampires; I'm sure you noticed their sunglasses, and 
their rather pointy smiles..."  He went on -never seemed to 
stop, in fact- saying how they rarely came out during the 
day, and how I should be honored that they made this 
special errand to fetch me.
	"...We felt that it was important for you to meet the 
whole firm at once.  And don't worry; they won't bite 
unless they get really mad ... I was only joking- good gad, 
boy! You look as though you've seen a ghost."
	And indeed I thought I had: Mister Barinstoke's right 
arm had just fallen off.  It lay, as if asleep, on the 
floor -- he hadn't even noticed!  I told you there was 
something wrong with him!
	Mister Barinstoke looked where I was pointing, and 
said "Oh.  Goodness me: I seem to have dropped something."  
He grinned.  "Don't worry, lad, that happens all the time.  
I'm a zombie -- you get used to it after a while...Anyway, 
you don't need to worry about it: come nightfall, all my 
little lost bits and pieces will come flying back and 
reattach themselves -- just like magnets, only completely 
different..."
	It was at this time that I felt a pressure begin to 
build up inside me.  It took a while for it to register, 
but there it was: I had to go to the bathroom.  If all was 
as it should have been, I would have just stood there 
and... But all was not as it should have been: I was human 
now -- whatever that meant.  I interrupted Mister 
Barinstoke and expressed my interest in using the 
facilities.  In all it was a very interesting experience, 
but I won't bore you with the details...unless, of course, 
you want me to?  No?  Very well then...Uh, where was I?  
Hm, Oh yes!  The firm, my first day...
	Well as I said, this was my first day as a human, and 
I must say that it was very enlightening:  I saw and did 
things that, as a horse, I had scarcely dreamt of.  Because 
I looked mostly human, the Customers who came in went 
straight to me, almost ignoring Mister Barinstoke; it was 
as if once you're dead, you're dead, no matter how alive 
you may seem.  I couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor 
stiff, the way his face fell (literally and figuratively) 
whenever he was shunted in favor of a more mortal option.  
I lost track of how many times I had to actually point at 
Mister Barinstoke for them to even acknowledge his 
presence.  Sometimes I felt so useless: I couldn't answer a 
single question (well, except for "Where's Narne's and 
Boble?" but that was only because it was on the rather 
large, lopsided sign outside).  Every other time I had to 
point to Mister Barinstoke and say, "I'm sorry, it's my 
first day.  Ask Mister Barinstoke; he'd know."  At this 
their faces fell too, and they steeled their jaws as they 
turned to ask the dead man for help; apparently, it took 
you down a few notches on the social scale if you had to 
ask a daisy-pusher for help.  Well, I had no such qualms.
	The sun was sky-high, and I realized that I hadn't had 
anything to eat since my last feedbag:  decades ago it 
seemed.  There had been a lull, so I went over to Mister 
Barinstoke.  He suggested we close up shop and "break for 
lunch."  When I asked him "Break what?" he chuckled and 
said: "No, no dear boy.  Come, I'll show you."  He turned 
the sign in the window to 'closed' and locked the door, 
dropping a bit of wrist in the process.
* * *
	He led me down busy streets, talking all the while.  I 
was excited to see it all from a man's point of view (not 
that I wouldn't have minded being a horse again), but not 
so overwhelmed that I did not notice that some of the 
establishments touted themselves as "distinguished 
purveyors of fine horseburgers."  Uugh...it still gives me 
shudders...
	Mister Barinstoke, however, kindly steered me away 
from those places and towards a vegetarian restaurant.  I 
had a salad, and I must say it was better than any bag of 
oats or fresh field.  Mister Barinstoke had a glass of 
water -- seeing as this was a special occasion.
	As we sat, we talked about things.  Like how he died 
(a failed case and an angry client), why the sky is blue 
(Rayleigh scattering), and the why and wherefore of 
my...unhappy transfer from farm to firm:
	"...Well, you see, we were a bit understaffed.  No 
human would come near us, except to employ us -- not to be 
employed.  I suppose they were afraid of Jason and Ubert--"
	"Who?"
	"Why, Messrs Morcol and Fletch.  Any-hoo, the humans 
would not come within twenty meteres of us; and the dwarfs 
aren't exactly what you would call 'people persons;' and 
trolls, well, they think that proper legal practice is to 
bash the defendant's head in with a rather large stick, and 
call it a day -- maybe a bit of lawn bowling afterward, 
some poetry... So, you see, anyone available for the 
position either made themselves unavailable very quickly, 
or didn't ought to be available in the first place.  You, 
my boy, were our 'Plan B,' if you will."
	"I was?"
	"Um-hum.  If we couldn't find a suitable assistant, 
we'd order one."
	"But, why me?  I was perfectly happy just where I was.  
I am sure there would be hundreds of creatures just begging 
to be human.  Why a horse -- and why me?"
	"Well, everyone knows that horses are good at math, 
and you were -- quite frankly -- the cheapest.  Actually, 
Farmer Joneson said something about you being -oh what was 
it? -'Too smart for your own good.'  Which was, of course, 
exactly what we needed.  Besides, who could let such a fine 
specimen go to Dr. Tingle's Glue and Dog Food Factory?"