“The Tired Horses and the Invisible Key” by Bob Rich
“The Tired Horses and the Invisible Key” by Bob Rich
Once there was a faraway city, bathed in light, where a woman waited in an enchanted cottage, her lovely eyes a fiercer and more piercing blue than the luminous waters that kissed the great coral reef. Every year, twenty tired horses, each of a different color, would complete an icy journey over white mountains through the bitterest snow-stung depths of winter to finally reach the tall gates of the legendary city. Around the neck of each horse was a rope of pure uncut gold, and dangling from one of the ropes was an invisible key that allowed entrance to the city where the patient lady resided. Each winter, men traveled from many lands to find the horses at the city’s closed gates, each man hoping to claim the key — but only a man who could understand the woman’s soul would be granted vision to detect the presence of the key. Twenty years passed, and no man ever could see the key as the men roughly and impatiently searched through the horses’ manes year after year. Then, on the twenty-first year, a man wearing a blue cape approached the weary horses, and he gave them all hay to eat and fresh water to drink; then he carefully brushed their hair; and he covered them with blankets to warm them from the freezing journey that the horses had just completed. He saw that one of the horses was too tired even to open its weary eyes; so, the man carefully walked up to the horse with closed eyes and he slowly embraced it, quietly speaking a prayer for the restoration of its health. Immediately, the horse with closed eyes neighed in appreciation, opened its eyes, and a resplendent key shone brighter than the sun from the golden chain around the horse’s neck. The bell within the city’s church tower chimed out a melody with notes that fell slowly to the ground like descending glistening jewels, and a flock of doves scattered from the perch of the church tower like a burst of bright white fireworks. And, the man reached out and grasped the key, grateful to soon be greeting the woman with the gentle soul within the fabled city.
