A horse galloping. One sees only its four legs.
Photo: Phillippe Oursel, Unsplash

Short Fiction

A Boy and His Horse

Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle
Lit Up
Published in
6 min readSep 10, 2024

--

Barrio Betances, Puerto Rico, 1980

Payito felt stupid. Napú, his half-wild gelding, liked him about as much as he liked the damned beast. He had tried. For months he carried water and grain to the animal in his stall, each time he was received with a snort, a whip of his head, and a glare from his bloodshot eyes.

A horse with its mouth wide open, showing ugly teeth.
Photo: Mikael Kristenso, Unsplash

His father told him to beat the brute. “It is the only thing he’ll understand,” he said. But Payito thought of the other creatures on the farm, from feral dogs and cats to timorous iguanas. They lost their fear and welcomed his attentions and ultimately his caresses.

Napú was a challenge the boy could not resist. The horse brayed like a burro. Payito pulled and prayed. He finally succeeded in leading the gelding out into the corral. It was no simple task. “Harder than petting a wildcat,” he thought.

He knew being strong for his 13 years was not enough: the gelding was much stronger. Querer es poder, “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” he remembered his mother saying. He knew she was right. Her way was to disappear one day.

--

--

Ronald C. Flores-Gunkle
Lit Up

A lapsed humanist currently doubting that there is hope for humankind. Yet, as the poet once wrote, “Hope is the thing with feathers.”