A quote: “The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.” ~~ Mark Twain
I’ll start with a story …
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Rex let out a low growl as the perimeter security softly chimed the grandfather clock. She reached to scratch his head in passing.
She accessed the hidden panel, selecting a far view of the ranch where a rising dust cloud revealed Sheriff Wayne, horse mounted and hell-bent for leather her way, a pack of devil spawn in pursuit.
Her hand hovered quietly over controls … wait for it … THERE.
She had a slice of hot apple pie and a mug of coffee ready by the time the Sheriff set his horse to cool down and crossed the porch.
“Ma’am.”
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Now it’s your turn.
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. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Lewis says: The sun was just coming up when I raced for the corral. Satan! Not another horse in sight! God help me!
We got it straight pretty quick just because I didn’t have time for attitude. The wind at our back, we flew down the trail. By God, this is a horse who knew exactly where we are going! He hit the cutoff before I realized it was coming.
We blew up to the control box and I was off, hit the alerts and back in the saddle. That horse fled from sight with me in tow! Another day everyone’s safe.
We buried Zeb this morning.
His death came as a shock for everybody, but for me it was particularly shocking, a sharp reminder of just how different life is down here on Earth. Out beyond Earth’s gravity well, those injuries would’ve been a minor nuisance. You wouldn’t even need to re-sleeve into a new body, let alone restore from backup.
Down here, you get the body the cosmic dice roll up for you, and that’s it. It gets broken and you have to life with the damage. And a snapped neck, a severed spinal cord from falling wrong — those were non-survivable with the limited medical technology available here.
Even the medical nannites swarming through my current body could’ve saved him, restored his body to full functionality. But after having lived and worked alongside these people, I’ve come to respect their choice to live under such harsh limits. I come from a people who value freedom, although our choice to dwell on our ships lead the peoples of Ceres and Luna to call us scum, so I must respect their choices as well.
Much as I look forward to returning to my own people, I can’t help thinking that my new-found friends live their lives more fully because they are lived so close to the bone.
Cameron says: The Sheriff was also the town’s horse expert. It’s a small town so it’s not as odd as you think. We called him about the mare we’d purchased and he agreed to take a look at her.
She threw him the first time. But rather than curse, he went back to his truck for a different saddle. She fought him for an instant and suddenly became placid.
After walking her around, he dismounted and walked up to dad. “Don’t ride her. It’s too dangerous. And I’m really interested to know who sold you a Kelpie. That’s attempted murder around here.”
Cameron says: (Darn stray tag.)
Navig8r says: Three days ride across the desert and I couldn’t help being reminded of that mind worm of a song, but the horse did have a name. We weren’t back in the rain, and wouldn’t be for several more days, but his keen sense of smell had brought us to a nice spring of cool water with a nice patch of tender green grass and that did feel good. Now Old Paint had found a large rattle snake. There was still the minor matter of staying in the saddle until he settled back down, but we would both dine well tonight.
Navig8r says: Three days ride across the desert and I couldn’t help being reminded of that mind worm of a song, but the horse did have a name. We weren’t back in the rain, and wouldn’t be for several more days, but his keen sense of smell had brought us to a nice spring of cool water with a nice patch of tender green grass and that did feel good. Now Old Paint had found a large rattle snake. There was still the minor matter of staying in the saddle until he settled back down, but we would both dine well tonight.
Cameron says: Been a while, Navig8r. Nice to see you posting again.
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