I am free.

The cold is not nearly so terrible if you know why it bites at your nose and stings your eyes. I’ve never much minded it. Seasons come and go; the pattern is easy enough to learn. The world around me rests, dormant and unopposing, putting up scant protest to my investigations. I am free to explore – to probe the vastness of this world with unhindered eyes.

I fly, held aloft on dry winter gusts. Below, a web of naked gray tree branches covers a bright blanket of snow. The thin lines connect, forming constellations on the earth’s surface that both mirror their celestial counterparts and remain entirely unique. There is texture and depth here, and I have never flown close enough to the stars to see those features on them. Perhaps one day I will try.

The limbs below begin to weave together more tightly now. I angle my pied wings downwards and descend casually, compelled by a desire to feel my hooves skim the surface once more. The cover of trees is a protective thing, and it occurs to me that there may be some life to find under these wooden veins. I wasn’t particularly lonely. I can keep myself company quite happily. But I’ve never been one to turn down some new stimulation, and I do not surprise myself as I ease through a gap in the arbor and light softly in the snow.

This snow is not a terribly deep one, just barely reaching the hairs of my fetlocks, and I land in an easy canter. There are tracks here, I note, and slow to a walk in a single stride. I approach them, feeling the gray midday sun against my back as my wings fold in to my sides.

As I so often do, I begin to think of a story. This one had happened far away, over yellow sands and turquoise seas and green plains and specks of horses flowing across land like tiny marching ants. It was in those plains that I was born, but that wasn’t the story I think of as my black muzzle sank into the fresh tracks in the snow. I think of the story before my story’s beginning: the meeting of my parents. Their love – was it love? – was a spark, quick to ignite and just as quick to extinguish. It must have been love once, but not in my lifetime.

I pull my muzzle through the snow and push my tongue through my small teeth, letting the cold white powder dissolve and trickle down my throat. “If it comes from the sky, it must be good,” I repeat an adage learned from Abuelita, my voice small in the woods that stretched so far around me. I enjoy the ice-cold sensation, the frozen blue coolness that pops in my mouth. I bury my head deeper and begin to lick the clean snow in earnest, feeling my hot breath turn its most immediate surroundings to water that tickles my nostrils. I snort and jerk my head up to giggle before continuing contentedly.

“…nowhere to go but everywhere, keep rolling under the stars.”
– Jack Kerouac