Evolution: Part 2

Evolution Part 1

I am put through the catch pen, held close in the stocks, and I still, but hold tight to my panic. Ears and eyes are my only movements.

The young hay man holds up a strange container that smells of good corn. I put my head in and grab and chew watchfully.

He holds the bucket to me again, and I ignore the thin rope, after a suspicious snort. As my teeth grind the food, the thin rope snakes up onto my head, is fastened around my ears, and I snort and fling and tense.

I am wild.

He holds up the corn, and pets my neck.

He sets me free to the round corral, and I run, run, I am wild, and the rope follows me everywhere. I feel it slithering along my legs and run faster, and kick.

I hold my head to the side, and the rope stops slapping my legs. I stop, and the rope stops following me. I shake, I snort.

I am wild.

The man enters with the container of corn, and I step, and the rope tightens behind my ears.

I stop dead. The rope eases.

I learn to give to the rope. I learn to follow the man. Always give to the pressure.

Always give. Follow to strange places, accept the touches.

Stand as he picks at my hurt, at my face.

Always give.

(But I am wild.)

Ride with my brethren in the strange clattering box, to sharp, strange smells and sharp, strange feelings.

Pain.

Into the box again, and again for endless hours roiling through strangeness and loud and rumbling engines and fear. Safe with my brethren.

I am still wild.