A Small Girl’s Holiday Wish
written by: Jenny Morelli
‘Crack! Jingle.’
The sound startles the small girl holding her mother’s hand with one hand and her stuffed Santa in her other as they watch the poor horse adorned with holiday jingle bells painfully pull the carriage along, whinnying its pitiful protest.
The small girl’s body spasms with the horse’s from the mean man’s whip-jingle as the mother tries to pull her away from the cruelty before them, and with intense struggle, the sad jingle-belled beast, hoofs shredded and bloodied, pulls the mean man and his clueless holiday passengers along the snow-covered gravel road.
He’s chomping at the jingle-belled bit with loosened teeth, with chapped and split jowls, needing a rest so desperately tears roll down the small girl’s cheeks.
One clop-jingle at a time. One pull-jingle at a time. The beast staggers and lumbers and jingles along the jagged gravel, a pathetic sight for all to see.
The small girl can feel his hunger. Can feel his thirst. Can feel his cold as she tightens her grip on her stuffed Santa.
Too weak to stand a moment longer, his legs buckle. He falls with a final jingle to his knees in supplication beneath the unbearably frigid air, sharp stone shards piercing his legs and belly.
He doesn’t seem to care how much the hurt hurts, and the girl feels every bit of his pain. Her only concern is the poor horsie’s need for rest, but that rest never comes.
Crack-jingle. ‘Get up!’ the mean man yells.
Whip-crack-jingle. ‘Get up, you lazy shit!’
The small girl covers her ears from his bad jingle-bell words as she watches another mean man pelt the poor horse with a gush of water, soaking him, drowning him as he shivers with chattering teeth.
‘Get up!’
Whip-crack-jingle.
The mean man lashes the poor horse repeatedly, tearing skin until the small girl tears free from her mother and runs to the horse.
She drops to her knees and pulls off her mitten; reaches for him, unafraid, her eyes pooled with sadness and sympathy. Her tiny cold fingers stroke his muddy, bloody muzzle. She shushes his moans. She hushes his fear. She hugs her stuffed Santa tight, whispers in its ear her All I Want for Christmas wish.
‘No more,’ she rasps to the poor beaten horse, her voice a feathered whisper. ‘It’s time for a change.’
She doesn’t flinch when the man barks. ‘Leave, Child! I have a job to do and a line of customers waiting for their ride.’
Instead, the child points to the bad man, liquid eyes unblinking. ‘It’s your turn now.’
And as the beast’s handler raises the jingle-belled whip and aims for the child, the horse closes his eyes, resigned, welcoming the end.
The world then turns a snow-blinding dark.
Turns black.
Turns upside down.
Turns into pure oblivion.
No more whip-crack-jingle.
No more anger.
No more sleet or snow or struggle.
No more weary, thirsty, hungry.
Only solace and serenity and surrender…
Moments like lifetimes later, the ground shudders. The beast’s eyes flutter open beneath the small girl’s hand as they list-jingle from side to side. Snowfall sears his sight. Soft sarape soothes his scuffed skin.
The small girl is tucked against his belly, snuffling in her slumber until she feels him lift his weary head, glimpsing past his long lashes through the slats of his swaying, sheltered stagecoach that carries them both along the gravel road. What they see must be a dream.
The poor horsie’s heartless hansom handler is trudging along, chomping at the bit with loosened teeth behind chapped and split lips. He heave-jingles the beast and babe and buggy with all his might, hands and feet frozen and shredded and bloodied, groaning and moaning desperately for rest.
One step-jingle at a time. One heft-jingle at a time, the man staggers and jingles and lumbers along the jagged gravel, a pathetic sight for all to see as his legs buckle and bend and bumble.
He groans and cries as he labors to pull the wagon inch by inch beneath the blizzard, and with one last bleary, blissful blink, the small girl wistful for a winter wonderland and the happy, heartened horse let their lids lower, dropping their heads and sinking into a most satisfied somnolence as they rock gently back and forth to the sounds of gentle jingle bells as if floating on fresh-fluffed, snow-puffed clouds.
‘Thank you, Santa,’ the little girl whispers.
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