Jinn

I had a dream that we were dead,
and we pretended that we still lived

There are days he thinks it would be so much easier if he were dead. If he were not this half alive thing that frightens ghosts and children alike. He had experienced life once, and it had been everything he could have hoped. But he is not destined for kindness. He is not destined to live as others live. He will always be of two worlds, a foot in both but never truly a part of either.

For now, he has learned to live with it. It is not life as it was meant to be, but it is the only life he has.

For the most part, he avoids the world at large. He had tried exploring the lands outside Beqanna. He had hoped (so foolishly he had hoped) that Out There might be different than In Here. He had been wrong. Oh, had he been wrong. Life does not want him, no matter where he comes to rest.

His father had been right all those years ago it seems. For so long he had held out hope that his mother’s love might sustain him. But cruelty is too freely given and love is too often denied. Especially for horses like him. For those that don’t truly belong.

Drawing a deep breath, his thin rib cage expands, causing skin to split painfully along the protruding bone. He shifts then, rising from his prone position. Thin legs that look as though they should not support weight curl beneath him as he moves to rise, putrid flesh splitting with each movement. As he pulls himself to his feet, skin tears painfully, wounds gaping in flesh that seems to barely hold itself together. With a sigh, he stitches himself back together once more, warmth flowing through him as his own dichotomous gifts battle each other to mend flesh that has long since died.

It is like this each day when he rises. Every morning his skin splits, parting to display rotting flesh. Every morning, he sews himself back together, hoping only to pretend for a another day that he might again be whole. When finally his task is complete, he is once more just a bone thin stallion with a dull patchy coat and milky blue eyes. Almost normal, if only from a distance.

Moving forward, he settles himself into a patch of winter sunlight, eyes (eyes that should have been a warm gold but are now only death white) closing as he basks in the weak warmth. His black coat is dull in the light, but the gold of his mane and legs glimmer faintly, striving for beauty on a creature that is anything but. He should have been. Were he any other horse, he would be stunning in his black and gold. But he is not. His flesh has betrayed him, as it has done since the day of his birth.