I am Cursed (and it's Horse Related)

I Can't Escape This Horse Related Curse

The air here smells of beer and fried cheese and there's a particularly rowdy group of Germans sitting right behind me. My mind is fragmented between worry and exhaustion but at least there's a spare phone charger. I'm swaying between a food coma and gentle drunkenness, but beyond the pleasure of a good meal there's a single sobering thought:

The horse has not disappeared from my bedroom.

Both the animal and me are still in the grasp of a curse we cannot comprehend. That's why I have returned to this faceless corner of the internet; to ask for your advice once more. But first— let me tell you of my past two days. Thanks to the advice of you kind strangers I have learnt more about the curse. Some of this knowledge, however, came at a steep price.

After three days of confusion and horror I only knew this— the horse would appear in my bedroom every night around midnight. The timing was never completely precise, yet the horse's position was. It always stood in the middle of my cramped bedroom, by the foot of my bed.

There was no way that I was going to lead a fully-grown barnyard animal out of my seventh floor apartment. I couldn't imagine the beast getting out of my doorframe, let alone fitting in the elevator. What did seem within the realm of possibility, however, was dealing with the horse out in the concrete coliseums of Prague 13. If I could somehow get the horse to appear down by the benches outside of my apartment complex, my problems would be solved. A horse on the ground floor is considerably easier to deal with than a horse 30 meters in the sky.

If I could get the horse to manifest outside on the benches I could make him disappear out of my life with a couple magic words: "Hello? Police? Yeah, there's a horse standing in the middle of the housing projects. He looks very confused. Could you send someone to pick him up?"

The summer air outside was crisp, a nice change from the stifling heat of the day. I had hoped to be alone, yet when I walked outside I found the benches occupied. The teens sat high up, electing to stay on top of the backrests rather than sitting in the bench like a normal person. All four of them were drinking from the same Pepsi bottle that they slowly topped off with Tuzemák rum. The scent of skunk weed levitated around them like an invisible force field.

As soon as I sat down their loud conversation died down into mumbling. The amped up techno playing off of their speakers turned down to a whisper.

They didn't like the look of me.

I was far too preoccupied with thoughts of the horse to develop an opinion of them.

After a couple minutes of concerned glances and whispered comments about the old guy sitting next to them the teens got up and traveled to another group of benches. Soon they stumbled out of my sight, but their slurring speech was ever-present in the housing projects. When the Bolsheviks drew cement circles around Prague's borders they did so for maximum housing capacity.

They never considered the echo chambers they were creating.

A helicopter passed above. It disappeared almost instantly but its low sonic heartbeat continued to echo through the projects. As the world around us shook the teens indulged in a loud chugging competition.

I tried to ignore the cacophony and kept my eyes on my apartment's open window. With every ounce of my being I tried to stay optimistic about the horse's arrival. I tried to fill my mind with positive thoughts, with hope — but then one of the teens started to vomit.

BLAAARGH!

The heave was followed by a crowd of high-pitched laughter, but the sound was wretched enough to wipe out all joy from the universe. In an instant I knew there was no escaping the horse. In one pained throaty bark I knew that my future was doomed.