I am Cursed (and it's Horse Related)

Each Night a Horse Appears in my Bedroom

All memories of the pleasant aspects of the tourism industry fled from my mind and were replaced by the specter of summer heat. The burning sun, the seared tan-lines of name badges, that eternal search for shade that would never be satisfied — reflected in that poor animal's eyes I saw the worst of the tourism industry. Yet I willingly subjected myself to the exhaustion that the brutal summer months bring, I walked the streets with my name-badge branding my red skin.

I had a choice.

The horse did not.

I stood there, overcome with sorrow from the sentience reflected from those poor eyes. I stood there like Nietzsche, with a view of a cruel world at my feet and discomforting empathy burning in my throat.

An American family with a screaming child approached the horse. I recognized the looks on their faces.

'Don't sign up for the horse carriage ride!' I yelled, in English.

The family froze, even the child found me more interesting than whatever it was crying about. Yet the look in their eyes wasn't welcoming. To them I was just a random person screaming on the street.

'Sorry,' I said, reaching into my jacket for my name badge, 'I used to be a tour guide. We're very passionate about these things. Horse carriage rides around the old town are not authentic at all and most locals see them as tourist traps. If you have a map I can point out an authentic restaurant for you.'

The name badge always does the trick, and the word authentic always clinches it. As soon as I pointed out a nearby restaurant the child remembered its misfortune and started to weep again. The American couple thanked me and set off on a search of good authentic goulash.

From behind his blinders the horse looked at me. His exhausted eyes didn't carry a hint of comprehension, yet somehow it seemed as if the beast understood I had saved it from excess labor. He let out a long sigh. The shivering in his muscles died down.

The astronomic clock beat its ancient bell and trotted out its five hundred year old puppet show. The universe seemed at peace. I felt good about myself.

That didn't last.

"What the fuck was that?!" came a shout in the local tongue, "Why the fuck would you scare off my customers like that?!"

He emerged from behind his carriage, furious. His face was rough; the years had made themselves known on his face. He had lived through Brezhnev, possibly even a couple years of Khrushchev. Had I met the man in regular clothes, in some smoky pub, I would have ran. My tender bones born into tender democracy are no match for someone who went through the struggle.

Yet that evening I did not run.

The angry carriage driver's clothes looked like they were the result of a torrid affair between a modern day magician and a member of Austro-Hungarian royalty. The top hat covered in sequence made the man significantly less intimidating— it emboldened me even.

"You shouldn't do that to horses," I said, with more confidence than I usually had arguing with strangers, "What you're doing to this horse should not be legal."

"The fuck else am I meant to do with a horse? It's an animal. It was born to work. I feed it. It drags around the tourists and then I get to feed my family. The horse is fucking lucky it's not salami, but here come you with your sunflower morals."

The man came within striking distance. Suddenly his magical clothes weren't so calming.

"Can't you see the animal is in pain?" I asked, tapping the horse's tense shoulder. The beast let out the gentlest of neighs in response to my touch.