Once there was a Horse

A Horse, a Snail, and a Dolphin

There was a horse of course and that horse of course lived on a farm by the ocean, but of course. Now every day the horse would go down to the beach and run on the sand from one end of the beach to the other, back and forth time and time again spending most of her day down by the ocean.  When the horse was galloping across the sand she noticed things on the beach, such as some driftwood, a shell here and there, a scattering crab, and some sea gulls. One bright clear morning she was doing her running back and forth up and down the beach but this time she saw something that she had never seen before way off down the beach. The horse was charging at this small object on the beach rapidly approaching what appeared to her to be barely moving. She stopped in a great whoosh of sand and looked down to see what was moving so slowly on her beach. The horse had never seen anything like this before and she wondered aloud, “what could this be?” Then a small voice said, “You nearly ran me over, you should be more careful of your fellow beach goers.”  Amazed the horse asked, “Who are you?” The small voice said, “I could ask you the same thing but I am a sea snail. And who are you that nearly squashed me while I was on my way to go lay on the beach and in the sun?”  The horse’s astonished replied, “I am a horse of course and I’ve never seen a sea snail before and I didn’t know that they could talk.” Now the horse said, “I saw you from a long way off and I stopped. I never would have squashed you.”  So the horse and the sea snail talked and talked about many things.  Finally the horse asked the sea snail if he would like to ride on the top of her head and feel the speed of her gallop.

                The horse bent down and let the snail slowly climb up her long nose and then between her eyes and finally the snail perched between her ears. “Hold on “, said the horse as she took off at a leisurely walk.  “This is the fastest that I’ve ever been in my life”, said the snail.  The horse then picked up the pace to a nice trot and the excited snail exclaimed, “Oh my! How fast can you run?” With that the horse took off at her full speed down the beach stopping at the end and turning around and heading back to the other end. The sea snail had never been this fast before and was fully enjoying this ride. As the horse and the sea snail were galloping madly along the beach a dolphin jumped up out of the water and looked toward the beach and saw the strangest thing she had ever seen.  She kept leaping out of the water to see this horse with a sea snail on its head running back and forth up and down the beach. The dolphin jumped out of the water and then jumped back out again and again, and again. Suddenly the horse said to the snail, “Did you see that dolphin jumping out of the water over and over?” And the snail turned to look and did see the dolphin. The horse and the sea snail both decided the dolphin leaping out of the water was the most bizarre sight they had ever seen. The horse slowed down and finally came to a stop right by the water’s edge, seeing this as she leapt out of the water the dolphin swam over to the shore where the horse and sea snail were stopped.

                The horse was shocked to see this dolphin swimming towards them. And the dolphin was amazed that the horse was just standing there.  The dolphin swam right up to the horse and the sea snail and told them that in all of her years in the ocean never had she seen anything quite like them. And the sea snail said that he had never seen anything like the dolphin and her leaping out of the water. The horse was equally shocked at the dolphin’s abilities and also that she could talk to her. The sea snail asked to get down from the horse’s head and she let him down onto the sand gently. The sea snail said to the dolphin, “You are amazing, the way you leap, the way you swim, and the graceful way you move.”  The dolphin asked the sea snail if he would like to go for a swim with her. “Yes”, replied the sea snail. “Climb up my nose to my head and hold on tight,” said the dolphin.  And with that the dolphin swam off so fast that the sea snail could hardly believe how fast he was going. The dolphin leapt up into the air over and over, again and again. She swam deep under the ocean and then came swimming quickly right back up to the surface and jumped high into the air with the sea snail on her head.  Finally the dolphin took the sea snail back to the shore where the horse stood watching the whole spectacle. The sea snail climbed down the dolphin’s nose and back onto the shore. “That was the most amazing swim that I’ve ever had in my whole life,” exclaimed the sea snail. The sea snail thanked the dolphin for the swim and thanked the horse for the run and told them both, “Today was the best birthday ever!” 

The end