This dissertation is a piece of creative writing in fulfilment of the Final Major Project for BA (Hons) Creative Writing.
I was born dead, according to my mother. I slipped into this world the colour of meat, raw and silent. They revived me, but I believe that in the brief moments where Mother truly believed I had died, that she began to let me go. She was a cold woman, regarding me as more of an annoyance than her flesh and blood. So, I grew close to my father. He was of the gentle sort, considered strange for his wealth and status. He spent more time with the horses, than anywhere else. Father’s project was a brute of a horse, a wild mass of sinewy muscle. It would throw even the strongest of men from it. One stable-hand even had the misfortune of landing in such a position that he never walked again.
I was seven years old, and I remember watching it from the window—the buck of the horse, the graceful way in which the man flew from its back. The crack of his neck as he hit the wintered ground. We sent tulips to his family, I believe.
I watched that horse grow as I did. Mother implored Father to sell it, send it away, even, but he refused, insisting that he would break it. He never did get the chance to.
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