The Rocking Horse Head

Jude Theriot, MD
Aug 24, 2017 · 3 min read

The smooth almost-nine-inch-long wooden dowel still stuck through the plastic rocking horse head can be slid back and forth about an inch in either direction, prevented from sliding out by a hidden internal mechanism. God knows where the rest of the rocking horse is.

Two circular cutouts, one behind each ear, guide the dowel’s sideways slide, leaving enough room for the dowel to slide easily through, but not enough room to get a good look inside the horse head, just a thin sliver of space around the dowel.

I squint and try to peek inside, but all I can see is a small screw screwed into the dowel, the top of it poking out of a tight black rubber collar: the hidden internal mechanism keeping the dowel from sliding out. A stopper-of-sorts.

When the dowel slides too far in one direction the top of the screw bumps up against the inside of the horse head, stopping the dowel from sliding any further. At least that’s what it looks like from the outside looking in.

When the dowel slides too far in one direction the top of the screw bumps up against the inside of the horse head, stopping the dowel from sliding any further. At least that’s what it looks like from the outside looking in.

But there’s a second screw on the dowel, which puzzles me, screwed as it is into a part of the dowel that’s on the outside of the rocking horse head, right where a toddler would grip it. Why is there a screw in the middle of the handle?

And why would the dowel be so asymmetrically positioned, with one side much too short for even the tiniest hand? Surely when the rocking horse was whole the dowel would have been centered.

Then it hits me. The two rubber-collared screws are external stopper mechanisms. They’re supposed to live on the outside of the horse head and keep the dowel in check that way. One of the external screws must have ended up inside the horse head. Rammed through the tight cut-out somehow.

And sure enough, on the left side of the head, running rearward from the circular cut-out across the curvilinear jaw-line toward the chipped brown paint frosting the windswept mane-hair meanders a crack in the plastic where the stopper-screw has been rammed through.

And now the screw is trapped inside the head, too large to come back out the way it went in without causing further damage. (Some holes are easier to go into than come out of.) I slide the dowel sideways, pushing it harder than before, really forcing the stopper-screw against the edge of the cut-out, and the meandering crack in the plastic threatens to expand. Centering the dowel now would mean re-breaking the fragile horse head.

If only there were a way to look inside, I think to myself, a wider window into the horse head than the sliver of space around the dowel, then I could see how the screw butts up against its trap and I might could carefully extract it.

Then I realize, wait, there is a wider window into the horse head. There’s a huge hole at the bottom of it where the rest of the fucking rocking horse used to be.

I turn the horse head over and look up through the gaping neck-hole. Inside is lemon yellow and there’s the hidden screw as plain as daylight. I reach in and finger the tight black rubber collar.

Then I slide the dowel sideways again, but softly this time, and leave the dowel askew.

)

Jude Theriot, MD
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