4: Atonement

He had exhausted himself from roaming the earth. Had seen the sun, had felt its soft warmth in the fragrant lavender covered fields, and its violent scorn in the empty dessert sands. He preferred the cold. He had felt the spring of lively green springtime grass and the weakness of fallen autumn leaves as they broke beneath his feet. He had travelled through sea, land and sky and had tasted the world’s taste. He had heard the harmonies of a thousand voices and had come to hear the song of the heavens and the sea’s laments at the daily rebirth of the glorious coconut moon.

Indeed this blue roan horse had loved all that his senses where capable of mustering. He found love in all that surrounded him, and had given his love willingly, openly, expecting nothing in return except for the hope of one day meeting someone like him, someone who would be willing to give it all, share it all.

Aye, but he had grown weary. Even hope can weigh heavily.



He had loved too much, too far out, had fully listened to his nature and given himself away piece by piece. And, though he had like no other creature grown in heart and in spirit, he had ultimately detached himself from his self in the process. He had lost the ability to be at one with his own existence since he no longer understood his own reason for being. Confused, saddened and lonely he lay forgotten within his own heart and whenever he turned to look inwards he could find only a diminishing scrap of the love he had been born with. Nurtured as he was of the world’s wondrous fruits he was starved of the most essential of all foods: the reciprocated love of another being akin to his race.

And so, empty as he was, full of love and loveless still, he joined the sea in eternal union, leaving his beloved prairies and moist woodlands behind, leaving the butterflies who so often came to rest upon him as well as the delights that his own body afforded him. All that he knew, all he had loved he gladly gave up for a chance at filling the void that for so long had troubled him. After all, what good is the greatest heart if it can’t be filled with the greatest love? Never again would he feel lonely, never would he feel unwanted or misunderstood as he walked into the sea that night under the light of the starry sky and the jealous watchful look of the moon, disposing of his tired limbs and his magnificent coat as he fused with the cold dark waters of the sea in a tender embrace. In that very moment he became a mystical creature by his own will. The only true Seahorse.


His heart shook momentarily as he felt the flood rushing in. In one swift moment it erased its warmth and though initially it made him shiver he soon found himself renewed, different, but alive again. Stripped of his body he was now only the water and foam of the crashing waves, still white, still blue, his heart now as big as the sea itself. And in his new state he found a new sense of purpose and felt complete for the sea had given him his unreserved affection, consequently setting off the Seahorse’s estranged love, now restored and apparently whole, like a tidal wave across the depths of the oceans.
In this act and from then onwards he became part of the life force of the sea’s creatures.

It made him happy to be able to feel free again, free from the constraining weights of his former loneliness. He felt as though he had recovered his own essence and he rejoiced in being able to feel, project and share his love once more, riding afternoon waves alongside mischievous dolphins, finding peace in the cold artic by the quiet polar bears and even playing with humans by the beach, occasionally throwing them around like a wild horse at the rodeo.

Happy as he had become with his newfound partner and the joy it provided through his unconditional affection still he could not shake the thought of that almost illusionary love. I remember him in his earthly body questioning himself if this being could be only a figment of his imagination and nothing more, a mere mirage destined to remain just an apparition. But even now, having renounced to his former physique, being bound to another, his hope of finding it, of finding her would never die. He would seek her close to land, strolling by the edge of every continent’s sandy shores or by crashing into the highest of their rocky cliffs. And if he should one day find her, impossible as it could seem, he would find the way to undo his tying bond to the sea. Just as he had merged with it, he would surface from it triumphantly to join her beloved, finally truly whole: The Seahorse and his love.