Black Beauty

She emerged from the oil-black gloom on occasion to move into one corner of the room or another to defecate. Every other day something came in with a brush and cleaned the floor and changed the hay. She would remain in the shadows, silently taking in this movement with due anxiety, betrayed only by the glint of any outside light on her black eyes. In many ways she shared the characteristics of the void around her. Years of dust and unwashed grime had formed a sleek coat over her which she had long given up on cleaning or grooming. Rubbing only made the sores worse.

She forgot what she was meant to be doing there or how much time she’d already spent in the darkness. She walked around the space, felt the floor beneath her and the walls against her flank to remind her of the physical limits of reality. Sleep was wonderful. She saw this world as only an interruption to her dreams, nothing more than a pause necessary to take the oats and apple, fuel to sustain her preferred existence - her dream world. She would pace a few minutes after every meal to aid digestion, remind her limbs to circulate her useless blood around a little while longer. She would do her utmost to work the stiffness out in her legs; ignoring any stimulus to leap or scream. She learned a long time ago that this was not something she could fight. After the chains, the shackles, the whips, the flame, the terror of threats made and the agony of them being acted on, she had learned to silently accept her place in the world, this 12x12ft box of wood and hay.

Beauty returned to her spot and lowered herself to the floor. It was so long since anyone had ever said her name it was lost even to her. No sounds encountered her bar the echoes of her own cries and the heavy thud of her feet against the floor. She let out a deep sigh and gratefully let sleep take her. It came so easily these days, for which she was endlessly grateful. 

Beauty dreamed of pastures, meadows, blue skies and human kindness.