The Race

285 words

Sixteen year old Brad screamed as the nerve-pulsing buzz traveled up his fingertips into his neck and ended in a metal filling.

The horse and cow in the pasture leisurely lifted their heads to see who had transgressed. No one laughed out loud but eye rolls were exchanged.

The line of electrified wire had introduced yet another kid to the power of stupidity. But Brad wasn’t done yet.

He rubbed the palm of his hand with his thumb as he walked back to his truck, grabbed two 2x4’s and tossed them against the fence. Placing one foot on each board he began the bouncy walk to the top of the fence.

The horse and cow made ‘buggy eyes’ at each other. What could go wrong?

The left board bounced higher than the right from the very start and without ski poles Brad soon straddled the electric wire.

When one of the 2x4’s walloped him in the back of the head, his own ‘buggy eyes’ saw red stars to so with the white stripes burned into the crotch of his blue jeans. Quite patriotic.

Horse and cow moseyed over to see if he was dead.

Horse said, “What do you think he wanted in this field?”

Cow replied, “Don’t know. Maybe milk?”

Brad rallied, “No. I wanted to ride the horse.”

Horse asked, “Where did you want to go? You have a truck.”

“There’s a horse race in town. I wanted to enter you in the race.”

“Why didn’t you say so.”

Horse ran to the middle of the small field, circled back and easily cleared the fence.

“Let’s Go,” he said to the prone Brad.

“I’m not sure I can ride astride.”