Midnight horse

A Short Story by Scott Newell
©2012, all rights reserved

Monday 5:00 am. I own a horse. I call him Midnight Horse. He's very fast. He has wings. I had to make a special saddle so I could hang on and not interfere with his wings. I'm getting dressed today for a light trip on Midnight Horse. I'm making oatmeal with dried date pieces, walnuts, blueberries and maple syrup. I feed Midnight Horse his breakfast and saddle up.

5:45 am. I live on a cliff over the ocean. It's the only place, really, to have a fast horse like Midnight Horse. We head to the cliff and leap into the salty ocean air. Rising into the clouds we gain speed, cool drops of moisture hitting our faces until we're going fast enough that they spin off behind us before they can land.

5:52 am. Oh yes, I can see islands way below. We're way past where birds fly so we can pick up more speed on our light quest. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. It will be my last gulp of air before we arrive at our destination. Not to worry, I've done this a thousand times before, we'll make it easy.

5:53:10 am. Now going fast enough to keep track of the seconds too. I keep glancing over my shoulder to see if we're going fast enough to see our destination. I tuck myself down into the bubble below the stream of air racing past over our heads. I don't know how Midnight Horse does it, I can't put my face into the wind. I now take quick glances under my arms behind me to see if I can find our destination.

5:53:15 am. Between glances behind I look ahead and see a growing spec in the distance.

5:53:16.012 am. Need a finer time track now, thousands of a second. The spec is turning into an owl. We see lots of owls up here. This one is returning, just like we will be shortly. We speed up, the owl slides past on our right side while he slows down.

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