We made the horse from sticks and burning rubbish.
One of the bigger boys trained it, running wild through the fields and gutted suburbs. We were always careful to only take it out at night, keeping it hidden from the daylight folded up between some sheets of corrugated iron.
I would take the young ones up on the ledges of an apartment building to squat between the sleeping pigeons and watch our horse run, leaving trails of dull sparks on the tarmac in the distance. You said in your tiny lilting voice that you loved the horsey and I'm sure you did. But I said nothing.
As soon as it will have run off its coltish skittishness I too will have to be ready and the long scar on my shoulder burns with anticipation in the cold night air. Leaving the little ones to marvel at our thrash horse's fiery trail, I scan the opposite horizon, where the remaining city blocks out most of the sky with watchful steel-dark towers.
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