“Good morning, Mister Charlie!” Regina patted the side of Charlie’s head and looked him in the eye. “We’ve got a visitor here for you. This is Cole.”

A man with a hobble stepped forth, leaning on an ornate cane. “I’ve seen you race, Charlie. You’re truly something else.”

Charlie stepped backwards in his stall, recoiling from the stranger’s energy.

“Maybe give him an apple.” Regina suggested.

Cole held out a glistening red delicious. Charlie couldn’t, and would never resist. Apples were among the greatest of life’s pleasures. Greater even than outrunning thoroughbred horses without a jockey. Cole won him over.

“Your speed is unmatched. Before the world at large realizes this small-town horse is worth untold fortunes, I told Miss Regina here that I have another opportunity for you. She’s clearly very fond of you, so she asked me here today to state my case.”

Charlie looked to Regina for reassurance. She was solemn, but nodded firmly.

“What I’ve come to realize, dear Charlie, is that race horses only perform at their peak for a few months. A year, the lucky ones. And then you forget about them. The reality is that they rarely live out their lives on some field like we all imagine.” Cole’s eyes met the ground and his expression darkened. “They’re usually disposed of, Charlie.”

Charlie whinnied and stirred a bit. There were horses he knew that never returned after an unexpected loss. What he felt was true. If you’re not winning races, there’s no use for a race horse.

Cole looked at Regina and smirked. “I knew he was different. He understands every word. Or at least the sentiment.”

“He’s one of a kind, Cole.” Regina pet Charlie’s head.

“So, Mister Charlie… I’m here to offer you a trade of sorts. Give up your speed. In return, the physical prowess you possess will be transferred into your nervous system. What you’ll gain will be a world of experience. More to life than you’ve ever known. Become something other than a race horse, Charlie.”

Charlie was silent. The offer was intriguing. All he’d ever known was racing.

“The process is entirely handled via medication. One pill and your life is no longer this. Once you’ve adjusted, you can come work in my lab. We’ll change the world, Charlie.”

“Work with you?” Regina asked. “No, Charlie’s gonna stay here. Whatever he chooses.”

“Miss Regina… I thought I made this clear. Charlie will be the first of his kind. We’ll need to monitor him constantly.”

Charlie stirred in his stable.

“Not happening. Sorry for wasting your time.”

“Don’t make this mistake, cowgirl.” Cole threatened, taking a confident step towards the small woman.

Charlie swung his head from left to right. His nose slammed into Cole’s head and knocked him aside, nearly to the ground.

“Fine! Everyone is so afraid of progress!”

Cole stormed out of the stable. His limp was worse than when he entered and his hair was frayed from the confrontation.

“I thought I was giving you a choice, Charlie. I didn’t realize he was trying to take you.”

Charlie bent his head towards her and shook a little.

Later that night, Charlie was delivered a fresh bin of apples. One of them tasted slightly off. Unusual.

“The morning arrived with the beaming sunshine of an entirely new world. A one so far from what Charlie had believed to be the reality he lived in. A reality completely full of information he couldn’t comprehend prior to today. There would be nothing in Charlie’s way in the pursuit of something more, as Cole spoke about. Nothing to prevent Charlie from achieving anything he set his mind to. The future was bright and brimming with potential. Could it be that Charlie was held in a stable within his own mind as a parallel to the stable he was held in externally? The answer ‘undoubtedly’ screams through the emptiness of thought to catch Charlie’s attention.”

“Charlie?” Regina said, shocked.

“Oh dear, it seems I relieved myself on the floor. How indecent of me. Allow me, Miss Regina, to sort this out.” Charlie unlocked his stall door and walked forward. On two legs.

“And here we are.” Cole emerged from behind the stable and began to laugh from deep in his belly. “He can’t resist apples!”

“You monster!”

“Let’s ask Charlie if I’m a monster.”

“Cole. You seem to be confused. For me to pass any judgement upon you… I must first fully grasp the context by which you exist within. Are you, say, a man of science, pushing his experimentation to its limits? Are you a businessman, looking to make some kind of profit on my transformation? Are you an animal rights activist, going out of his way to rescue those poor creatures in need such as myself? By your reactions, or lack thereof, I sense it is none of the aforementioned positions. Tell us, Cole. What are your true intentions here? What is your context?”

“Jeez, Charlie.” Regina huffed.

“You were about a guess away from getting it right, Charlie. That pill is a miracle.”

Cole dropped his cane and undid his overcoat. He was standing atop wooden stilts, hence the limp. He removed a wig and his glasses.

“Ahh. It seems Cole was a character. A character played by none other than my own jockey, Giorgio. When you fell from the saddle and I finished without you, you felt betrayed. You felt a loser. Incapable, even with a winning horse, of winning. And so you hatched this plan to rid me of my speed. Your folly was giving me this gift of enlightened thought. Now, I’ve already hatched my own plan, you see.”

“And what plan is that?”

Charlie extended a knuckle from his hoof and jammed it into Giorgio’s tiny thigh. Giorgio doubled over onto the floor and laid on his side in a realm of pain.

“Nice, Charlie Horse.” Regina pet his head.

And so followed the phrase that swept the globe, igniting thigh pain in all troubled youths… uniting and dividing all at once.