The mare with no eyes had ways to make up for her blindness. For instance, her hearing was exceptional. Attuned to the faintest decibel, she could discern a man’s heartbeat as he slept ten feet above her in the hayloft. Out in the pasture, she pinpointed the filing of the rasp, sifting its sound through the buzzing and droning of bees among the clover and buttercup. She deciphered the presence and number of coyotes on the prowl, their inquisitive sniffing at the fringe of the forest.

The mare with no eyes was sensitive to sound, but even more so to touch. She would rear and kick when the deer flies settled on her luxuriant hide. The vampires failed to feast upon her vitals. And she was a vital creature, so full of life that we named her Vital. She was full of spunk, but no one wanted to call her Spunk.

We failed to corral her into submission, failed to repair the corral after she ran straight through the rotten planks. The mare with no eyes was a real firecracker, and when they lit up the sky, watch out! The farm dog, Bastion, kept coyotes at bay, but in early July, the days leading up to and after Independence Day, he would cower in the furthest corner of the shed. He wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t even drink. But Vital was worse. She’d bray and neigh and kick at phantoms, gnash her great yellow teeth at ghosts. Last July, she trampled several ducks. She nearly trampled Bastion.

The mare with no eyes was at home among the dark. In the night, she would gallop across the moonlit meadows. A shadow in the night, she blended in, all but disappearing.

Vital was now free, having jumped the fence, with no one motivated to force her back home. Vital was black with a white mane. Night sky and stars. Ocean surf churning foam against the midnight shore. The mare with no eyes was majestic—any fool with eyes of their own could attest to her beauty. Sometimes I miss her, but most of the time I am glad she is gone.

These days, I sleep in the hayloft. I doze after a hard day on the farm. I nap while the sun is still shining, illuminating the hay like the neighbor’s little girl’s blonde curls. Sometimes I get so drunk I plummet from the hayloft in my sleep. There are mounds of hay at the bottom to dampen my fall.

I’m comfortable sleeping in the barn. It’s no Marriott, but hay is warm and has a nice smell. Vital was warm, if you could get close enough to touch her, and I have always favored the smell of horses. She was a wild mare, and the truth is that sleep comes easier now that she’s gone. Whiskey helped me rest through all of her neighing and snorting. I often dreamed of horses in distress. I’d wake up to the very same thing.

The cock crow cuts through my brain in the morning. Coyote paws pepper the mud where I abandoned my tools. Under the sun, hard work simmers my hangover down to a bearable consistency—a process called reduction. At lunch, Mom’s stew is thicker than honey. Each day, her meals are the light at the end of the tunnel. I never fail to clean my plate. I’m so hungry, I could eat a fucking horse.

I’m not proud of what my mom calls “my episodes.” Like when I got so drunk I kicked Bastion in the ribs. No good reason. Just general angst. I heard a crack and wished that I hadn’t done it. Vital had been watching me —she still had her eyes— staring at me in a way that spoke as plainly as Mr. Ed: Young man, you deserve to die.

After that, I had bad dreams. More horses in distress. More nightmares. A mare in the night staring me down—Vital’s eyes, as cold and bright as the moon.

On one occasion, I got so drunk that I took my fear and anger out on my horse. I did what no good man would do. That’s what my mother told me, though my father had no words for me that day. He nearly blinded me when he beat me, the day I blinded the mare with a farrier rasp.

The mare with no eyes had ways to make up for her blindness. I swear to God, she could hear a rabbit fart six feet down in its hole. She was beautiful, though feral as a tomcat.

Since the day Vital jumped the fence to fend for herself in the forest, I’ve slept worse than when she neighed nearby throughout the night. I can’t sleep with Bastion snoring, the coyotes howling across the paddocks. I can’t sleep, but when I do, I dream. I see the eyes of a majestic mare. They never blink. They never stop watching. They are filled with boundless depths of sorrow.

***

James Callan lives and writes in Aotearoa (New Zealand). His fiction has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, BULL, Bottle Rocket, Reckon Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. His collection, Those Who Remain Quiet, is available from Anxiety Press.

Find him on X/Twitter: @JamesCallanNZ