On the Way to the Front.

A very short story about war.

The two dead horses lie together on the side of the dusty road. Soldiers continued to march by, on their way to the front, each man staring straight ahead. No one wants to look at the horses. The ones that do see their bloated stomachs turning black in the sun. flies cover their bodies so if you looked from a distance it looked like they are covered by dark blankets. Their tongues are swollen and more flies are busy moving inside and out of their mouths, the eyes too, flies prefer the soft tissue. No one knows what happened to the horses but one must assume they were shot, there is a little blood, dried brown in the dirt around their heads. 

 They must have been great horses once, one large and white, and the other brown and a little smaller. The manes are stirring gently in the breeze and almost give the illusion of life until you look a little harder and see the legs twisted up beneath them, their horseshoes already removed. 

A little further along the road are the bodies of three dead soldiers, they had been laid side by side on their backs with all their pockets already turned out. As other soldiers, the living, passed by each head turned to look at them. 

It is far easier to face the death of another human being, maybe because we blame them, maybe we think it their own goddam fault they took a bullet or a fall or fell ill, or maybe it is just a strange truth that horses die in the same way humans die, only with more dignity.