Wishes, Horses

Families in the Loosest Way Possible

When she got on the train, she knew nothing about trains except one movie where horses chased one.

She had never seen a horse or her grandmother in real life.

She had a concept of what a grandmother was supposed to be but one video of her own grandma sitting at a picnic table eating cake didn’t tell her much.

The woman her father put her on the train with assured her no horses would chase the train, and that horses were harmless even if they did chase it.

The train went through a tunnel. 

No one had mentioned tunnels.

When she and the train came out of the tunnel into the same basic world she had been in before with cars and buildings and no horses, she was disappointed.

Her father’s last words to her were “be good.”