Olus

I stand and look.
My hands are shaking.
From the cold. From stress.
It’s a bit chilly.
You can slowly feel autumn in the air.

Olus hits the concrete with his hoof.
This noise is carried among the August winds and morning mists.

A few yellow leaves are already covering his barn.
A few others are still struggling before fall swallows them up.
Such a constant cycle of life and death.

I’m standing on the threshold.
I’m a bit afraid to go in because Olus is scared by the slightest noise.

Before I made a decision and crossed the threshold, the merchant banged on the wooden gate.

He rushed in like a whirlwind, grabbed Olus, tugged and dragged him along.
“What is Lady doing here?!” Please come outside!” he growled and showed me the milky mist beyond the concrete threshold.

Olus stared mutely at the camera. Of course, no one examined him here. The previous owner just noticed that he was bumping into everything. When he ran into a cab in the yard, the cup of dissatisfaction overflowed.
Olus got a ticket to the slaughterhouse.

He didn’t show up.
He lacks assertiveness.
Nobody asks him if he wants to.
The statement that “you always have a choice” has nothing to do with Olus’s “here and now”.

I’m taking some photos of you. I see that Olus is helplessly pounding and pounding with his hoof – as if it would save his life.
He shakes his head so much that I don’t even know if he sees me.

But I see him very clearly.
I can hear his heart pounding.
I feel terror grip his entire world.

And that night they would take his pounding heart and terrified eyes and load him onto a car. Among these August winds, in the silence of his own helplessness, Oluś and his desire to see the autumn grasses that are not promised to him will pass away.

I’m begging you.
Stand here with me today.
Feel the cool wind. The end of summer. Feel that only you have the power to take him from here today, give him a handful of days to fight for his blind world…