Wild Horses

Chapter 1


Whatever they say, miracles don't happen. At least, not in tiny, godforsaken countryside towns like this one, and certainly not to guys like me.

So thought Arthur, the young emerald-eyed man, swiping his hay-ish hair from his brow, eyeing the field opening before his eyes. The wind played in the sea of tall grass, making it weave like the real ocean the boy had never seen.

From where he was standing, the line of thin birch forest behind his back, all he could see was this endless field marking the borders of his life and his boredom. He had faced this sight countless times before, but yet, right now it was making him bitterly, painfully aware like never before of the permanence of his fate – his cage. Here, the nature cultivated in you the feeling that you could have anything by spreading the entire sky above you, yet made you realize soon enough that you could have nothing at all but the illusion.

Arthur Kirkland realized this at the beginning of his 20th summer, the summer he knew would be just like any summer prior to it – it would promise change but that promise would be washed away by the midsummer rainstorms. In this place, summers were meaningless, and in his case the meaninglessness would not end along with the last warm days. He would be staying here – probably for ever – trapped in between the sea of tall grass and the endless sky full of promises.

Arthur crouched down, elbows on his knees, his chin resting on the entwined fingers.

"What will become of me here?" he asked himself. Over the yeas talking to himself out loud had become somewhat of a habit. It was lonely here. There were few people he could talk to and even fewer he wanted to talk to.

"What will become of me if I stay here?" he asked the bunch of daisies that trembled in the wind a little, as though dancing. "On a farm from six to nine, and then to the bar riding a tractor, getting stinking drunk… day after day, year after year, the whole life growing stubble and on my face and mushrooms under the bed… a lifelong hangover, huh? What will I do if I stay here? Get married to some farmer's daughter to hide that I'm gay? Have a normal, not-really-outstanding life? Go nuts?" he gave up on sitting and fell on his back into the green sea bellowing all around him.

Looking at the sky above him, falling on him, he shook his fist at it, then let his hands fall down lifelessly.

It would be a few hours before auntie would miss him. Even though he was long out of high school, she insisted on his having a summer holiday with as little work on the farm as possible.

"We couldn't send you to college, dearie," she used to repeat. "So the least we can do is provide you with a proper summer holiday."

He couldn't quite follow her logic here, but he had to admit he was kind of thankful for an opportunity to avoid the work he seemed to be doomed to do for the rest or his life. Or maybe not. There was too much time to think about nonsense and it was driving him crazy.

"You should go to the city sometime," auntie had suggested on one rainy day. "A young boy like yourself should have a chance to see the world."

Arthur had just shaken his head. Where would he go? And with whom? Everyone he had known back at school had gone away for college, and he hadn't really bothered to keep in touch with anyone. Gosh, did he ever even have any friends?

"Fucking America… with its fucking rosy dreams… with this endless sky that has sucked all my dreams out of me… Blimey, I used to be so fucking naïve," he mumbled, the burning glare of the sun forcing him to close his green orbs. "Princes… millionaires… coming to this fucking hole of a town to fall in love with me… I was… such a schoolgirl," his tone was half-annoyed, half-bitter.

The tall, tall grass surrounding him threw shaky, uneven shade upon the spot he was lying on. It would be so nice to take a nap here now… too bad he'd probably get burned to ashes if he really fell asleep. But he was weary, so very weary. Suddenly all his limbs felt like they were made of pig iron, he could not move a finger, he didn't want to move. Just before allowing himself to drift into honey-coloured afternoon sleep, he overcame the sudden weariness for a moment to reach for his cap and place it so that it covered his face from the persistent sunbeams.

Even if it was just for a moment, he wanted to forget who he was now and recall the way he used to be – a child with amazing, crazy dreams of amazing, enormous towns and crazily beautiful people. Arthur let the honey-tinted wind of sleep envelope him, unaware that in about an hour he would wake up to learn the true definition of sky-blue…


A/N: To prove to the world that I'm a master of multitasking, I'm starting a second story within two days from publishing the prologue of my first fic... OTL Couldn't help it, though. :P The idea for this came to me yesterday as I was crouching at the edge of the pea field near our house and listening to the train that never stops in our town, speed by... In a way this story is some kind of strange reflection of my own thoughts... Being stuck in the countryside for all eternity of the summer holiday SUCKS, darlings. Gives you a lot of crazy ideas and makes you start writing fanfiction. LoL. More to come soon! :3 (I'm gonna update Countdown2000 Sweetheart with the first proper chapter tomorrow! *heart*)