Tekla

Tekla gallops here on bowed legs, legs the likes of which the world has never seen.

Really?

No, she’s not galloping.
That’s a metaphor. She can barely stand.

She’s shaking.

They say a horse is legs, and without legs, there’s no horse. In our world, a world where everything is measured in money, it’s a wonder Tekla lived to this point. Those hooves didn’t warp yesterday.

I stand and watch her rock back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut from the immense pain. She could probably lie down to relieve herself for a moment, but then she has to get up, and that’s unimaginable suffering.

Tekla is trapped, and no one has ever wanted to help her. It probably started with something simple. The farrier was neglected once, twice, three times. Her hooves didn’t grow as they should. Her joints began to deform.

And all I could get was the news that, fortunately, Tekla had given birth to two more foals in the meantime. The farmer laughs and says she earned her oats, but now someone said she couldn’t handle another pregnancy. He claims he bought her like that. He trimmed her hooves somewhere, rubbed them with something -he doesn’t know exactly what. He glares at us, and I can tell he’s unsure whether to ask us out or let me take his picture.

When I see hesitation, I tell him we’ll pay for the wait, because we understand he’ll get everything he needs at the slaughterhouse. His eyes light up, he pats Tekla’s rump twice with his large paw, making her tremble, and then he leads her out of the car.

You wouldn’t want to see this. We wanted to help him carry her, but there was no way. It’s, you know, different rules here. I didn’t want to close my eyes, but I couldn’t bear to watch Tekla, her legs tucked under her, trying to descend the gangplank.

I don’t know why some horses have everything, while others have almost nothing. Why these animals, suffering in silence, don’t reach anywhere with their pleas for help. Perhaps it’s because the Teklas of this world are so quiet.

She only snorts softly when I try to run my fingers through her sparse mane. And then she opens her eyes, as if to tell us she’s at the end of her rope. We found her in a barn in Silesia. I don’t know her past, but I know her past perfectly. It’s short, like a blow. Basically, it’ll be a blow, and then there’ll be nothing.

I can’t imagine loading her up and driving her somewhere. Braking and starting, then unloading her. And then walking her crooked hooves down the narrow aisle of the slaughterhouse. It’s beyond me. Tekla will never gallop with our horses around the reserve, but she will be able to live at our rehabilitation center – at the Animal Farm in Szczedrzykowice, where you can meet her during our open house this spring.

We need to raise $275 today for Tekla’s down payment. We have 48 hours.

From today on, you are everything she has. Every $1 you donate counts.