Nighthorse

Content warning: this story contains strong language, alcohol/ tobacco use, and implied sexual content.

Colby leaned forward and blew smoke out the cracked window. On the other side of the wall, Jesse and what’s-her-name were going at it, fucking or fighting, it was hard to tell. Colby coughed, wishing the damn window would open wider, the landlord wasn’t a prick, and Jasmine would text him back, wishing a thousand different things, none of which would come true or ultimately matter.

The apartment building was quiet this time of night. Maybe not on weekends, but on a Wednesday, no one gave a shit after midnight. Even the unemployed, or the ones not yet due at work, stayed inside, away from the February chill. The parking lot and the street beyond lay in jagged dark; the nearest streetlight had burned out, and the city hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. There was supposed to be a light above every other apartment door, but somebody had stolen the bulbs at some point, every one of them, there one day, gone the next. Scratch up yet another code violation. Was there even a code to follow? Perhaps when you signed a lease in a dump like this, you waived away the right to complain about petty legalities. It’s not like Colby had read the fine print.

“Oh fuck!” the woman screamed. At least, Colby thought it was her. He took another drag. Picked up the pint of drugstore whiskey from the table beside him and pulled the burning liquid down his throat. He glanced at the clock on the oven in the kitchen and closed his eyes. Maybe another hour, and he’d have his room back. Jesse never took a woman to his trailer. He lived on his parents’ property. No septic; you shat in the house or in the woods. Jesse was a woodsman. The trailer stank of skunk weed and burnt foil. Colby had been there once, had thought of bathing in turpentine afterwards. Whatever you were supposed to do after getting sprayed by a skunk. He wasn’t sure the smell had entirely left him even three months later.

The turquoise numbers on the oven turned over the minute. Colby sighed. A bottle of shitty booze and forty bucks from Jesse—that, apparently, was the price of a good night’s sleep. He had to work in seven hours, and he’d be sleeping on the couch until he could get to the laundromat.

“Fuck,” someone else said, Jesse or the girl. Something fell over. The lamp on his nightstand?

“Yeah,” Colby said. “Fuck.” He took another hit from the bottle, stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray, and headed for the door.

It was cold outside. Bitter, penetrating cold. A coat might help, and shoes, but Colby stood on the edge of the parking lot in an American Aquarium T-shirt, sweatpants, and slippers. He lit another cigarette and watched the smoke rise above his head, hazy snowflakes of carcinogens dissipating into the endless stars above. He needed to clean up his act. He needed to find a new job. He needed to tell his cousin to hook up at his own fucking shithole.

Something clopped to Colby’s right. He started, almost dropped the cigarette, and thought: clopped? Had he ever heard a clop? Did he even know what a fucking clop was?

It happened again. Hollow but solid, firm and fragile. Echoing, resounding. A clop.

“Excuse me.”

If Colby had had a firm grasp on his senses, if he had not been exhausted by a broken heart and a berating boss and a thankless cousin, he might have screamed. Instead, he coughed.

“I apologize. I startled you.”

The voice was firm, masculine, formal. Colby thought of an old standup routine he’d heard as a kid: He enunciates.

More clopping noises. Slowly, the figure emerged: a horse—a stallion, that was the word that popped into Colby’s head even though he wasn’t sure what a stallion was, black as pitch and somehow radiant, coat shimmering, mane fluttering in the faint winter breeze. The horse moved purposefully, one step at a time, as though considering each crack in the pavement, each piece of detritus scattered about. It huffed, then clopped, a huff and a clop, how’s that for ya, and approached within a few feet of Colby, where it stopped and stared at him with black eyes rimmed in deep gold.

Colby blinked. The cigarette shook in his fingers. He lifted it toward his mouth and inhaled too early, while it was still an inch from his lips.

“It is a cold night. I did not mean to scare you.”

Colby glanced behind the horse. The rest of the parking lot, the street beyond. He looked over his shoulder. A couple of windows showed light, muted by curtains. Most were dark.

“I am here for Jesse.”

Colby nodded. The horse watched him.

Something rustled somewhere. A raccoon, maybe. A car horn barked from a few blocks away. The town was not totally still. Just this small, desolate corner of it.

“Do you know Jesse?” the horse asked.

Its lips did not move. It looked at Colby and the voice appeared in the air between them. Not in Colby’s head. He wished it was. He really wished it was.

“You can talk,” he said.

The horse dipped its head slightly. “As can you.”

“I’m not a horse.”

“Nay.”

Colby gulped. Took another, proper drag. Licked his lips and judged the distance between himself and the apartment door. Wondered if his legs would even move. How was he standing? He couldn’t feel the lower half of his body. The cold, he told himself. He was not convincing.

“Jesse’s busy,” he said. He glanced quickly at the horse, then away.

“At this hour? He is usually sleeping. If he is sleeping, he will not mind my interrupting him, I assure you.”

“He’s not alone. He has a girl with him.” Colby paused. “A woman, I mean. Not, like…” He squinted into the darkness, seeing the horse, seeing beyond it, seeing the inside of a rubber room and Malcolm McDowell with his eyes pinned open. “He’s busy. You know.”

The silence crackled. It thrummed and radiated. The horse stared at him. Colby tried not to stare at the horse, those empty black eyes in a black head against a black night. The air hung crisp and fragile, ready to shatter. Colby could feel the cold in his marrow, underneath his toenails, in the recesses between his fingers. The pavement gave beneath his feet, absorbed him, diminished him. He sank into the moment, the reality of what lay before him, the pure understanding that what was happening was happening. He was here. This was it. This was the world and he was a part of it.

The horse sighed.

“Is he giving her the dilly?”

Colby blinked. Raised the cigarette, inhaled, a normal and natural gesture in this normal and natural time. He nodded.

“Yes. I think so.”

The horse snorted. “Oh. I have chosen an unwise time to visit, then.”

“How’d you know he was here?”

“I always know where he is.”

“You, uh, know him, then. Well, I mean.”

“Oh, for many years. Has he not mentioned me?”

“A talking horse?” Colby scratched his stubble. Needed a shave three days ago. Jasmine had always been on him about his hygiene. “I don’t think he’s mentioned it, no.”

“I see.” Was that disappointment? “I suppose he has his reasons. In my experience, you are a fragile lot. I mean no offense.”

“Oh, none taken.”

There was distance between them, but Colby could feel the horse’s breath on his skin. Warm. Wet. Lingering on his arm like motor oil. He casually tried to wipe it off with his cigarette hand, brushing ashes aside, just smoldering cigarette ashes, but had no more success than he had expected. He settled for another puff and a side glance at the horse, whose attention had not wavered. Maybe it could read his mind. If it could talk, it could do anything else, at least in theory, and theory was all Colby had at the moment. Not a normal evening’s occurrence, he thought, and Gee, I wish this horse would go away but understand why I’m uncomfortable and not take umbrage. He snuck a glance to see if he could recognize comprehension in those black orbs. Saw nothing but a mirror reflecting the darkness around it.

Something fluttered around the dim glow of the nearest streetlight, a block away. A bat or a giant talking moth, who could tell. Colby realized it had been a while since he had been outdoors by himself this late at night. Perhaps not since the time he’d tried to run away from home, not meaning it, pissed off about some small thing he couldn’t even recall now. He’d snuck out of his house just before midnight, his mother and brother asleep, his stepfather drunkenly absorbed in a wrestling replay. It’d been summer, he remembered August, the deepest part of it, when the cicadas didn’t sing, they roared, and the humidity clung to you like cobwebs.

He hadn’t anticipated the grass being damp; he slipped the second his sneakers hit the ground, fell back against the vinyl siding, the back of his head rapping the window hard enough to leave a crack that his mother wouldn’t discover for another four months. His vision swam and he fell, the house holding him mostly upright. He blinked, felt for the back of his head, no blood, that was good, and pushed himself up, brushed his jeans off as if that mattered. He lifted his gym bag and gave everything another thought, was it worth it, should he do this, and decided his resolve hadn’t changed. This was the start of a new life, and he couldn’t give up before he began.

“I made it two blocks before I turned around,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

Colby shrugged. “Nothing.” He flicked the tip of the cigarette. “Doing that thing where I talk to myself. Jesse didn’t mention it?”

“He did not.”

“I see.”

The horse shifted. Not a clop this time but a scrape. It didn’t shift its gaze from him, hadn’t since it had arrived. Emerged? Appeared. Colby had never been this close to a horse, normal or otherwise. He didn’t think they were all this intense, but for all he knew, they could all talk and he was the only one not in on the joke. A good joke, though. A real whopper.

The cigarette had little life left, but he still took a final, desperate drag before flicking it away. It bounced and sputtered on the pavement, rolling to a stop near a 1994 Ford Taurus whose owner already had enough trouble in her life. Never a dull moment, Colby thought, under the horse’s gaze. Maybe it was in the lease.

“Do you suppose he will be much longer?” the horse asked.

“I don’t know.” Colby fingered the pack of cigarettes in his pocket. “Maybe.”

“This has not happened before. He is rarely occupied this time of night.”

“Hmm.”

The horse exhaled. “Well, there is no use in waiting. It is a cold night, and I do not want to put you out.”

Colby lifted a hand, waved it. “You’re good.”

“I will visit him some other time. It has been a while, and I miss our palavers.”

Colby nodded. Rubbed his face again. Couldn’t feel his fingers. “Of course.”

The horse started to turn. For the first time, it glanced away. Colby felt the weight lifted immediately, so sharp he took a deep inhalation of the frigid air. The cold snaked into his lungs, through to his heart and stomach. His fingers twitched and his eyes watered. He thought he might fall. Crumble. Unravel.

Then the eyes settled on him again, and the world came crashing back down. Colby gasped, staggered a half-step. He reached instinctively for the cigarettes, fingers brushing the pocket of his sweatpants. He pulled his arm away, brought it back around into a perfectly normal position, which he of course knew how to do. He blinked.

“I must say,” the horse said, “this neighborhood appeals to me. There is a certain charm about it.”

“Charm,” Colby said.

“It is honest. Unpretentious. This neighborhood is exactly as it appears to be. It is simple. There is truth in simplicity.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I told Jesse this once. That he should not overcomplicate his life. He surrounds himself with clutter. This is not in itself harmful. But it can distract one from the beauty of the world one lives in. How still this night is, for example. How peaceful. Is there not beauty in this moment? One should be able to find comfort in serenity. I told Jesse this. I told him that he overcomplicates his life to an alarming degree. I care for him. I do not want him to overlook the moment.”

“What did he say?”

The horse sighed. Damp, warm breath wafted over Colby’s face. “He told me a story about his mother. A most beautiful story that brought me to tears.”

Colby nodded and said nothing.

“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” the horse said. “Perhaps we shall meet again some night. It is hard to foretell what turns life may take.”

“Sure,” Colby said. And then, because Midwestern hospitality came free and easy and unbidden, “You’re welcome anytime.”

“You are very kind.”

The horse dipped its head in farewell. As it turned, the hair on its tail came within an inch of brushing Colby’s face. If it touched him, he would scream, he knew this, no way to stifle it, you couldn’t tame something so primal and instinctual, but the tail missed him, and he watched as the horse clopped away, each clop distinct, moving as carefully as it had approached. It vanished slowly into the night, dissolving one inch at a time, as though slipping through a crack in this reality and into another. Colby watched until it faded to nothingness, listened as the footsteps—hoofsteps—receded to a faint echo that he heard in his mind even after he knew they were gone.

Colby fumbled for his cigarettes. He slipped one between his lips but didn’t light it. He stared into the darkness where the horse had disappeared. After a minute, or ten, he spit the cigarette out and turned back to his apartment, but hesitated. He glanced over his shoulder, taking in the stillness, the cold like crystal, the shadows cragged and imperfect. He could not see beauty in it. Truth, though? He squinted. Maybe there was some at the fringes, murky and undefined. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see it. But maybe it was there all the same.

Author's Note:

This story started with a late-night date joke. A man says, "I'm not a horse," and the horse responds, "Nay." The story also combines some neighborhoods of my hometown and one of my old apartments. I actually have seen horses in the middle of my town at night, though not unaccompanied.

D.W. Davis (he/him) is a native of rural Illinois. His work has appeared in various online and print journals. You can find him at Facebook.com/DanielDavis05, @dan_davis86 on Twitter, and @dwdavis.bsky.social.

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