By Thomas Thorspecken
Stella Arbeláez Tascón wanted to visit her sister Carolina who had just moved her horse, Gold, into a new barn. Carolina and her fiance were busy getting the place ready.
Their daughter, Alejandra hung out with Stella and played on her own in her own mini barn. The plastic horse had movable legs and a long flowing tail. The plastic horse however was just a tad to big for the plastic barn. If it was squeezed into the barn its front legs or hind legs would have to dangle off the floor. A very poor design I must say.
Alejandra on the other hand could fit herself in perfectly. She tried squeezing in with the horse as well, but that was a disaster. The barn doors just would not close. The horse was thrown aside.
There was a baby girl with long flowing blonde hair, lying on the roof of the barn. I don’t know why. She seemed to be taking a nap with her arms raised. Perhaps she had climbed up there using the tiny ladder she was lying on. A key chain in the doorknob had a bottle opener for the all important task of providing liquid sustenance on a hot day such as this.
The real horse behind the mini barn had a ball on a rope he liked to play with. He would pull on the rope with his teeth and then let the ball drop back down to the ground. The occupied him for maybe 10 minutes and then her turned back to relax in the stall. It was a super hot day so movement was turned down to a minimum. Flies were a constant nuance. One fly crawled all over Stella’s palette, convinced I am sure that one of those colors was a tasty treat. I shooed flies off my sketch with my left hand. The horses shivered the flies off their hide or swished them off with their tales, and learned to live with the flies that marched up and down their snouts. I wished the flesh on my arms could shiver that same way to shake the flies off. Since my hands were full of art supplies, I leaned over repeatedly and blew as hard as I could the offenders.