Short Story #57: McSweeney!

Prompt (Courtesy McSweeney's Internet Tendency; caution: contains dangerous words): Write a story that ends with the following sentence: Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon. (Word count: 259)

* * * * * Crossing the desert on a horse with no name sounds fine in song, but long before she reached the coast, Debra Witt understood differently. Running third in a field of eight after crossing the Strait into Morocco, she’d grabbed the reins of the first animal she saw, paid its owner, headed for Tunis.

“Shoulda grabbed a camel,” she told the horse after being passed twice by competitors. In response, the horse, a proud-looking black stallion, slowed down.

Slowness of pace wasn’t her greatest worry, not after she saw the bugs eating the horseflesh where the saddle rubbed the skin raw. Coming to a dead stop—equal parts stop and dead—before reaching Tunis, lay heaviest on Debra’s mind. She purchased another saddle blanket at a bedouin camp to minimize the wear and tear to the horse.

Passing through Constantine, the horse had begun to stagger and smell. Rules of the Phileas Fogg 5000, the annual race around the Mediterranean Sea, prohibited competitors from changing horses midstream, or mid-desert: you were stuck with your choice of conveyance until the next leg of the race.

Five miles outside of Tunis she fell into seventh place. The horse fell for the first time. Debra got it to its feet; they staggered on.

Just inside the city limits she saw her salvation and lay down to catch her breath. Four hours later she awakened to cheers for the last-place racer’s approach. Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon.

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