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Let Down Your Hair
The stallion appeared as if out of nowhere, a clip-clopping apparition cantering down Main Street on a Tuesday at around 4:00 a.m. The early hour ensured that there were no witnesses of his arrival, save for the milkman, Hans Hannsen, formerly of the lumber trade before the industry dried up. He traded in his axe for milking crates, and for the past three years, had made a profitable business to support his family. The work was always laborious—and the cows, crankier than kind—but on the morning he met the stallion everything changed. No longer was Hans Hannsen the milkman, now he was the owner of the finest horse the town had ever seen. The stallion’s mane was so wondrously long that he could be called nothing but Rapunzel. And the stallion, for whatever reason, answered to it, accepting his new name and offering a long-nosed nuzzle into the crook of Hans’s arm. When the citizens of Eau Claire woke to find themselves without their daily delivery, they peered out onto the street. And one after another, they wandered toward the town square, a pajamed processional of men, women and children, all of whom wondered from where the horse came, and for how long he might bless them with his presence. Words by BJ Hollars. Audio narration by Ken Szymanski. Audio recording by Scott Morfitt. |