Horses Before the Storm

The storm announced itself across thirty kilometers of steppe, rain curtains hanging off the mountains like laundry, light going that heavy gold it only goes when it is about to be taken away. In the middle distance, five horses grazed with the composure of animals who have read the forecast and filed it under irrelevant.

I stopped the car and stood at the grass edge with my hands in my pockets and watched, which is a research method, whatever my accountant thinks. Horses before weather are the oldest picture this region makes of itself. It needed no author, only a witness with the sense to stay quiet.

The first fat drops hit the windshield exactly as I closed the door, timing I would like credited to skill. Then the steppe went silver, the wipers earned their living, and I drove into the dark with the heater on and the radio finding only static, which out here counts as local programming.