Horse Flesh

 

By Adrian Naylor

1.

I feel I should start with something dramatic: as I sit here, unsure who will read this in the months and years to come I feel a weight of responsibility. And yet as I look around me I see normal everyday objects and surroundings. Is history always so humdrum?

I suppose it started with the Bolognese. Who’d have dreamt the beginning of the end would be a value ready-meal? Although the poetry of the justice does make you laugh. But I won’t start there – not yet. I have a little time, if not enough.

2.

My name is Craig Kennedy and I was that fat, pasty kid at school with the unhealthy interest in science. I was born in Wolverhampton, England, into working-class suburbia with two older brothers, a fussy mother and a dad who got laid off from Rover when I was only eight. It was just before Christmas – wonderful sense of timing – and I’d wanted a microscope. Only Santa sent his apologies and a Subbuteo set instead.

I finally got the microscope three Christmases later – Dad was working at a garage and Mum had gone part-time at the Comp. I remember opening the box, remember the feel of the cloth lining, and of the deliciously cold metal.

“Make sure you don’t break it!” Mum shouted – as if I would break the most fabulous, fantastical object in the whole wide world. I was fascinated by anything small – especially anything small and alive. Would you believe I have a tear in my eye? It’s been happening a lot lately. Been thinking too much  not much else to do. If I do go off on a tangent please bear with me – I usually overcompensate with humour but I’m not sure I’ve much of that left.

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