The Dancer's Secret -- A Short Horse StoryWritten by Randall Holman
It was sunset. The wind rode on sharp edges of mountains dragging last bit of color away from darkening hills. In a small cradle of two hills lay a beautiful girl. Her hair was long and soft, and when it touched wind no other beauty could compare to it. She had a long face and brilliant searching brown eyes. Her feet were perfectly conformed, but were not like everybody else's who surrounded her. This girl's belly was not thin and it was not bulging, but was somewhere in between, and was perfect shape. She stood up. Her long hair covering her body like a coat. The wind pushed against her forehead, cooling nearly invisible sweat.Others gathered around her, watching her intently. She began to move in a slow, but upbeat rhythm. It grew very quiet. The others continued to look at her, and started to wonder why she had begun to dance when music hadn't started. The girl's curves moved back and forth and her hands danced their own dance around her stomach. Back and forth she moved until earth seemed to move and mountains rumble. The grass quivered back and forth at eerie silence. She stopped. The ring of quiet shadowed everyone's ears. The beautiful girl opened her mouth. A long sweet tone emerged from her lips. The gazing onlookers listened intently to wonderful sound. The girl dropped down to a very low pitch and then swerved back up like a bird that was getting too close to ground. She sang and sang as if she were pouring her inside beauty out to others. Her voice stopped, and once again silence covered everything. The girl's body began to
| | Can Your Pet Be Really So Picky?Written by Julia Imaeva
Most of pet owners know that their much loved four-legged members of family come with a lot of personality and unique, sometimes almost human-like behavior. For instance, my cat would act as a peacemaker when she smells human fight. If I become angry and start raising my voice during conversation with someone, she would just jump on my legs and slightly scratch me in an attempt to cool me off. I am sure that people can tell us plenty of such examples of interesting pet behavior. But do they realize that their pets can be very picky when it comes to choosing a new friend?
They do it using such criteria as smell, size, gender, age and even appearance. In fact, they can even discriminate other animals according to color of fur among other things, as I soon discovered about my new cat.
When I first brought home my jet black panther-looking cat Regina, I was so excited to have her in my house until I realized that she might feel lonely and need someone to play with her. So, I started to look around for a good match for her. I opened up flier and found advertisement for “Very cute cat to good home” and responded to it. Naively assuming that all cats that are cute and mellow will get along just fine, I brought him home. Almost immediately upon bringing him home Regina jumped into air with him screaming and hissing. I was surprised to find ugly side of my otherwise calm and sweet cat’s nature and immediately knew this would not work out. Later there were more cats: a white one, gray one, even multicolored cats, different ages and genders – although U.N. or Jesse Jackson would have been proud; it was always same story. Either they would fight or Regina would simply reject cat outright. I began to think that my unassuming cat was “racist” or maybe just a loner.
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