I know they're too far away to be visible, but I look anyway. Apparently, it's a momentous occasion, so you can't help thinking you ought to be able to see something. But of course it all looks the same up there: no rocket parked in space, no men walking on the moon.

My brother is given a telescope.

Still can't see anything.

The next day I watch ants through it.

I'm given a toy astronaut, but his role in my games is never very clear. He has bendable limbs. I bend his limbs.

I just don't see what all the walking-on-the-moon fuss is about.

I'm still excited about walking on the Earth.

 

However, in July 1969 the furthest I'm allowed to go on my own is up to this fence. I stand on the second rail and lean over.

I slap the horse's neck wherever there's a fly. It's not my horse but I do this every afternoon to help it.

The horse thinks my hair is hay and tries to eat it. It doesn't hurt. I stroke his forelock and he closes his eyes. I don't know whether he does that because he likes being stroked or because he thinks I might accidentally poke him in the eye.

The earth is dry and bare under the tree where he's standing. I rip up some lush, green grass from my side of the fence and - keeping my thump well clear - let him Hoover it up out of my hand with his bristly, tickly, bicycle inner tube lips, causing me to screech with laughter. At this, the horse twitches his ears about. He stops chewing to listen. I wipe my hand on my shorts. The horse goes back to his chewing.

Hang on, his ears are going again. They're going in different directions. What the hell's he listening to now? I think he's actually stopped chewing to listen to me chewing. I spit out my gum and roll it into a seamed, grey ball. It looks like a tiny brain in my hand.

When the horse has finally swallowed the grass I offer him my head again. He nuzzles my hair but doesn't try to eat it. He remembers it isn't hay from a minute ago. But tomorrow he'll try to eat it again.

I stroke his nose. Is that his nose, or does it count as his head? Where does the head end and the nose begin on a horse?

The horse looks at me with huge, brown eyes that have no middle point for you to settle your gaze upon; they're brown all over like standing water. Are all horses' eyes like that or just this one's? I have no idea. I talk to the horse, looking into various parts of his left eye as if it were a puddle I dropped something in. Then I look in his right eye. There are all sorts of things I'm wondering. For instance: there are jumps set up in the horse's field. The jumps are higher than the fence. I don't get it – if he can clear the jumps, how come he doesn't jump over the fence?

I guess he just accepts the fence as the edge of his world, and that's that.

I'm still holding my chewing gum brain. The horse has his eye on it. Probably considering Hoovering it up. I move my hand away.

I think about my own brain. I look at the horse's head, picturing his brain inside it.

Then it gets a bit hectic because I'm considering my brain considering the horse's brain considering the chewing gum brain.

Is it normal to think this much? You see, there I go, now I'm considering the considering.

That's how it starts. My thoughts going beyond.

I just want it to be nice, like when I get grass for the horse and he tickles my hand.

 

I notice a muscle twitching at the top of the horse's leg. There's a horsefly there, that's why. I reach between the rails and swat it. There's another on his neck. I get that.

Then, silently, one lands on me. On me! I smack it to the ground.

I stamp on it, just in case.

“See you tomorrow, horse,” I say. Then I run off towards home, leaving the horse swishing his tail in and out of the shade.

Content last updated: 08/02/2007