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We were instructed to peel our orange and then share the segments. That was the way it was done – but only when the horses were brushed down and fed and settled and everything was put away just so. We had ways of doing things and it was important to cleave to them so that all the stories could be told and all the truths could come out. We knew of the knife with the serrated edge. We knew of the master and how he had killed a Kraut with it. We knew where it lodged, but we knew to resist and to abstain. The horses took their part by obliging us with firm resolve and dogged persistence to the point of collapse, if we didn’t pull them up. They set the standard for obedience that was expected of all four of us and we admired them for it.
Except on a certain day an inclination to unsettle things overcame us and we sliced the orange into quarters with the serrated edge of the knife without settling the horses, letting them sweat cold and shaking. We pressed the skin between our lips like apes, drawing the juice through our teeth and grimacing to each other as unruly folk would, unable to voice our grunts and roars due to the muting effect of the orange peel, but laughing with our eyes till the juice was all gone save that which flowed from our eyes and from the necks and backs of the horses.
February 25, 2022