The following story is from the mind of my 13-year-old daughter, Agatha Rose. She wrote it on her phone after dinner on Saturday night during commercials of the Panthers game. Granted, I edited it for her, but the concept was all hers. The force is strong with this one.  

***

“’Come back!’ the voice called out as I ran as fast as I could down the darkening path.

It was just a normal day after school when I decided to take a shortcut through the park to get home faster. I had two tests tomorrow and needed to study. Only, because I am still a child, it’s hard to see a swing set and not want to play. So I did. And before I knew it, I was lost deep in my own imagination. I finally snapped out of it when I heard my watch’s alarm go off, alerting me that it was 6:45 and time for dinner. Mom was going to be so angry at me.

I checked my phone to text her, but I had no battery left, which was weird since I thought that when I put my phone in my bag it was at 67 percent. Or something like that. Anyway, right when I gathered my stuff to leave a van pulled up at the front of the park and two men dressed in black stepped out. When I saw them I started to speed up. I was almost out of the park when I realized that I left my phone on the bench. So I jogged back to grab it but it was gone. I looked around but all I saw were the two men staring at me at the front of the park. Then, they started walking toward me.

“Excuse me, ma’am!” they yelled at me. I turned and saw them running in my direction. My first instinct was to run, so that’s what I did. As sunlight started to fade, all I could see was the path I was sprinting along. Oh my gosh, I thought, why are these men chasing me?

Then out of nowhere I saw a large shadow moving in in the trees in front of me, and before I knew it the shadow broke off into many. Hundreds of them. I couldn’t turn and run toward the men so I kept running toward the shadows. That’s when I noticed that it was a pack of wild dogs. I didn’t know if they were coming to get me, but I had to keep going. Once they reached me they continued running. Right past me. Toward the men. I fell after one of the dogs ran between my legs and I laid there, covering my head, listening to the stampede pass. When I looked up, there was a white horse standing beside me. I looked back to see the dogs attacking the men. The horse then bent down down and allowed me to sit on its back. The second I was fully on the horse and holding its soft, white mane, he ran. I’d never ridden a horse before, but somehow I was an expert. We ran out of the park and right to my house. I got off the horse and went inside.

I left everything at the park, book bag, phone, everything. I slammed the door, found my mom and told her everything. Not long after, you guys showed up.’”

“Is there anything else you can tell us about the men?” asked a bald policemen.

“No, it was too dark to really see them.” I said.

“Ok, and what about the horse?” the policeman asked.

“Leave her alone,” said a woman in a purple shirt with a badge on her belt. “She’s been though a lot, and we all know there couldn’t have been a horse.”

“But there was!” I yelled.

“Ok, ok.” the woman with the purple shirt said, before covering my ears and whispering to the bald policeman, ”There was no horse.”

As my mom drove me home from the police station, I looked out my window and saw a white horse standing in a meadow. And then all of the sudden it grew wings and flew away. Into the black night.

pegasus-horse

***

Jim Mitchem

Self Help
On Rating Art

Jim Mitchem

Writer. Father to daughters. Husband. Ad man. Raised by wolves. @jmitchem on twitter. First novel, Minor King, out now.

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