Dog and Pony Show

Ten years before there was nuclear fallout, there was a 12-year-old girl who wanted a pony. She begged and begged and begged her mother for a pony, but every time her mother said, “No. No pony, what do you want instead?”

“A necklace,” the little girl said one year, pointing out a heart-shaped locket made with a cheap, pink, plastic gemstone in a Sear’s Christmas catalogue.

“Fine, you can have the necklace.”

That year, there was no necklace under the tree. There was, however, a pony in the backyard, a chestnut mare with a white blaze in the center of her nose.

“Merry Christmas, Penny.” Her mother said, a knowing smile spreading across her face like frost on a windowpane. “What are you going to name her?”

Penny considered, squinting.

“Heart Locket!” She declared, finally, on account of the fact that the blaze on the mare’s nose looked a bit like a heart. It didn’t, really, but little girls are always thinking everything looks like a heart.

“Come on Heart Locket, come on.” Penny said, 11 years later, as she walked the horse into the barn. Heart Locket’s step was slow and heavy, her distended belly cramping her typically quick trot. Penny knew that the walk from the pasture to the barn would be a crawl, but she’d walked her out anyways. She wanted Heart Locket to see the sun, chew the short grass, feel as much like a thoroughbred as possible. What was coming was going to be… a challenge and Heart Locket deserved to see beauty. As much beauty as a horse could see. As much beauty as was left to see.

Heart Locket’s foal was not the first animal to be born after the bombs, and it was not the first to be born deformed. Penny had seen mutilated kittens with too large eyes, piglets with skin that sagged of their bodies, the texture of mostly melted butter. Once, the neighbor’s dog had given birth to a litter of pups where all the pups had seemingly melted together in the mother’s womb. Neither mother nor child lasted long; they were buried now in the town graveyard in a grave marked by black spike. Less of a rest in peace, more of a keep out. The spikes were the new tradition for those that died of radiation sickness or other, radiation related incidents. It was meant to look menacing; the thought was that they could scare away future generations from trying to do archeological digs. There is nothing here worth finding, look elsewhere.

“He might survive.” Penny murmured.

“It won’t,” Dr. Williams said with a shake of his head. Dr. Williams was a dermatologist, by trade, not even a vet or general practitioner, but he issued such a sentence without hesitation. Penny got the feeling he said the same to many, many others. Like a dolly at Christmas, “Dr. Williams! Pull his string, hear bad news, comes with over five catchphrases!” Still, he was more qualified than Penny, a wanna be cowgirl, an anachronism even before the bombs.

“He might.”

The foal looked more like a baby bird than a horse. His skin was covered in a thin layer of black hair, the texture of peach fuzz. Nearly translucent flesh was wrapped too close to the bone. As he breathed, Penny could see his lungs expand and push against the toothpick bones of his ribs. His heart seemed too big as it twitched and fluttered. But it was twitching and fluttering. That was all that Penny could see.

Dr. Williams told Penny not to name the foal, so she named him Mood Ring. She thought it suited him, his delicate skin and hair was almost iridescent. If you squinted, maybe you could imagine it changed color with your mood. Most of the time it was black, occasionally a sickly maroon, whatever that meant. Besides, in the same Sear’s catalogue, the one that had the heart locket, had also advertised mood rings; it fit.

Mood Ring’s legs were practically nonfunctional. Penny watched day after day as he tried to stagger up, only to collapse again like a temple rotting in fast motion. She could see that heart struggle under the sickly skin. Every time Mood Ring tried and failed, he would glance between Penny and his mother. His eyes were perpetually wet and slightly bulging. I’m sorry he seemed to say, I’m doing the best I can. Heart Locket wouldn’t nurse lying down, so Penny took to bottle feeding Mood Ring. All things considered, he drank like a normal foal, dribbling slightly, but always eager. He was endearing, in all of his strangeness. He was going to make it.

The road to town to get more milk seemed to stretch every day. Before the bombs, Penny remembered the scientists experimenting with a laser that could induce time dilation. Maybe that was a side-effect of the bombs. Probably not, it was more likely that everything seemed to drag on forever when you wanted to get back somewhere in a hurry.

“More whole milk?” Asked the cashier, Mrs. Smith, Penny thought her name was. It was her shop, but there weren’t many left to do menial tasks, so she ran the register and stocked the isles too. There was a run on cream, which probably has more nutrients than just regular old milk. Penny asked once when it would be back. Mrs. Smith didn’t know; they’d been out of cream for a long time. “For that little freak show?”

“For the little freak show, yes.”

Mrs. Smith scoffed. “You oughta do the Godly thing and just kill the poor dear. It ain’t kind to make it live to suffer.” She might have been right, it might have been kinder for Penny to just bash Mood Ring’s brains in now, but (if) when he could eat solid food, Penny would feed him sugar cubes. So—

“He’s going to make it.” Penny said. Mrs. Smith glowered, but took Penny’s money and handed the bag of milk back anyway. Penny left without saying a polite goodbye and started the dusty, un-dilated way back.

Heart Locket was underfed like they all were and giving birth had hit her hard. She was sluggish, she lost her appetite, she did not want to move or go outside to feel the grass beneath her hooves.

“Come on, Heart Locket, come on old girl.”

Mood Ring lay not far away, asleep, swaddled in a blanket to provide warmth that is scraggly hair could not. He still could not stand. Heart Locket glanced at the handful of oats Penny offered and turned away. No thank you, not tonight. Heart Locket had always been fussy, so much temper for a horse named after something so sweet.

“Come on.” Penny insisted. Heart Locket still refused.

“Fine.” Penny relented, “have it your way.”

Heart Locket huffed; Penny reached to pet the heart shaped blaze on her nose. It really didn’t look like a heart, but her younger self had believed with such fervor that it was heart. So it was; besides, the alternative was it was just a misshape oval mark on a horse’s nose and somehow that made the whole thing feel less magic. It was a heart; she was Heart Locket.

The next morning Penny buried Heart Locket in the graveyard. No black spike.

Penny carried Mood Ring out to the same pasture Heart Locket used to graze in. Ever since the old mare’s death, Penny had a feeling like a bomb being loaded onto a plane. Something bad was about to happen; it was bound to. Bad things were always happening, everywhere and all the time.

She set Mood Ring in the grass and sat beside him. Immediately, the foal snuggled close to her.

“I have nothing for you,” she said. More specifically, she hadn’t brought the bottle but perhaps “I have nothing for you” was more accurate. Mood Ring stared with those wet eyes, seeming to understand, but not moving away.

Mood rings, the cheap jewelry piece, changed color with body heat, not emotion. Looking at Mood Ring’s (the foal not, not the jewelry) meager fur and baby blanket, Penny wondered if she was warm.

She wanted the horse to look at the sky and see beauty, but he only seemed to have eyes for her, damp and shiny in the low light. Maybe he didn’t need to look up. Maybe the radiation had blessed him with exploding super novas in the mucus that had never seemed to clear, behind the eyelids that could barely close over oversized eyes.

Penny jerked to her feet and took a few steps away. Suddenly, the impulse to try again was too strong to ignore.

“Come on,” She muttered as Mood Ring stared with those big, glossy eyes. “Come on.”

He seemed to catch on pretty quick as to what Penny wanted from him. He staggered to his flimsy legs, testing flimsy strength.

He made it two steps. It was good enough.

“That’s it, that’s my guy.” Penny muttered, sitting down again in their now slightly augmented position. This close, she could see Mood Ring’s fur was starting to take the shape of a marking, a blaze not unlike his mother’s.

Not quite heart shaped, but close enough.