Six Minutes In An Alternate Universe

The train came to it's routine halt and I watched as the horses looked on in despair. Foals. Tens and tens of foals. Their excited screams rang through the horses ears. And like magnets to a fridge the horses reclused to their respective corners and waited for the onslaught of foals.

Normally I'd join the horses in their dislike of these noisy creatures but this time it was different. On any other day I'd have relinquished the silent depths of the metal enclosure, but today, today i revelled in their excitement. We're on a train hooray!

To the foals I was just another horse. But I was a fish, a little fish. My eyes skimmed anxiously over the crowd, pondering which one would sit beside me. Which one would take on the world from my point of view for just a little while.

Little CC sat down and the head horse ordered an obedient silence. The foals ignored her. CC leant forward and started conversing with a neighbour foal. Watching this, I muted my distraction and listened in on their hushed whispers. I wanted to know what they were talking about. I wanted to know what went on in the land of foals. Was their world upside down like mine? Was the sky black? Did they have souls? I had to have my questions answered.

My body urged me to lean forward and become an invisible member of their huddled duo, to learn their secrets and make good use of them. I looked around, they were all conversing, not like the horses. The horses were all sitting in silence staring at apparently nothing. This used to be me.

I imagined myself talking with the foals, laughing with them, whispering into their tiny ears, whispering secrets that were too sacred for the ears of a horse. I wanted to tell them that life was hard, that life wasn't fair, that they should embrace their world now while they could. I wanted them to know they had potential and they could do anything. I wanted to tell them not to turn out like me. But I couldn't. I couldn't tell them anything, to them I was no little fish, to them I was nothing.

These innocent foals had no idea. They had no idea what life held for them, what tragedies they would have to face as they grew up. Which battles they would win, and which they would lose. I suppose their naivety equates to their seemingly innocent demeanour.

Before I became eternally immersed in their world the train came to a halt once again. It was time for them to leave. I was sad. I didn't want them to go. These six minutes had been fun, joyous even. Six that I would never forget. For six mere minutes I was in a place that I never thought I'd be allowed back to, a place where I wasn't me, a place where I was one of them.

Little CC with her big black eyes picked herself up, she stood idle, hesitant to leave this place, but without warning life yanked her along regardless of her intention. She was gone. They were all gone. Every one of them. I peered out the window, desperately trying to remember their faces. Maybe we'd meet again. Maybe they'd remember me like I'd remember them.