Retirement

I slowed my car and carefully drove onto the grass bank as there wasn’t a safe place to park on the narrow country lane. The moment I spotted the horse I could tell something was wrong. I wondered how many drivers had passed this location and either didn’t spot the problem, or didn’t care. I slowly approached the horse while uttering soothing words, the words didn’t matter, perhaps I was just trying to calm myself. The animal was surrounded by at least 2 days’ worth of manure, and this angered me. I reached down the leg and tried to remove the fencing wire that was wrapped several times around the fetlock. But one pair of hands wasn’t enough. I needed someone to stop the horse from pulling back from pain. I envisioned the horse damaging itself further, probably catastrophically. I called the fire-brigade and told them to leave the sirens…