As I sat at my writing desk, a sudden recollection of my teenage years washed over me.

I’m not entirely sure what sparked it. A trigger, perhaps. Or something quieter—something that had been waiting.

Then it struck me, sharply.

It had something to do with the film we watched last night—Remarkably Bright Creatures. A story about a stoic woman and a Giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus. The octopus narrates its life in captivity, counting its days inside a glass tank.

Captivity, they called it.

But as I watched, I couldn’t help thinking:

rehabilitation.

And that word stayed with me.

My eyes drifted from the page, and without warning, I saw myself again—not at a desk, but on horseback. Younger. Smaller. Free in a way I didn’t understand at the time.

Her name was Twinkle.

Our first meeting was nothing extraordinary—just chance, like most important things tend to be. I had won a junior gymkhana at the age of nine, and with it came prize money and something far more valuable: a horse.

That win transformed me overnight. From nobody to something like a hero.

But looking back, I know now:

It wasn’t me.

It was her.

There are things you can’t explain, no matter how many words you have.

Marcellus said something in that film that never left me:

“Humans cannot use the millions of words they know to tell each other what they need.”

And that was it.

That was Twinkle.

She understood me in ways no one else ever did.

There were no conversations, not in the way people think of them. But there was something deeper—something quieter.

The wind in my hair.

 The rhythm of her hooves against the earth.

 The warmth beneath my hand.

That was language.

That was trust.

That was home.

But like many things in my life, it didn’t last.

One Friday afternoon, I came home from school to find a moving truck in the driveway. Men were already carrying our belongings out of the house.

Another move.

Another disappearance.

Another ending without warning.

My teenage years arrived without guidance. Without structure. Without anything resembling stability.

I was wild.

No—that’s not the right word.

I was feral.

I ran.

In and out of places that were never meant to hold me.

And somewhere in that chaos, I found an old man.

A war veteran. A gambler. The closest thing I ever had to a grandfather.

“Oom Bakkies,” I called him.

We spent hours playing poker. Endless hands, endless silence, broken only by small pieces of wisdom he would drop like stones into still water.

One of them stayed with me.

“Don’t search too hard. The most important things in life will find you.”

I didn’t understand it then.

But life has a way of proving such things.

Not long after, I was given a horse.

No explanation. No story. Just… a horse.

And everything that came with it.

Saddle. Reins. Equipment.

A gift from someone who chose not to be known.

His name was Copper.

Every afternoon after school, I would rush home, eat whatever I could find, gather food for him, tie it down to my bicycle, and make the 11-kilometre journey to the stables.

I didn’t go there to ride.

I went there to sit.

To watch him eat.

To speak.

I told him everything.

And I mean everything.

And I swear—he understood.

You could see it.

The way his ears moved.

 The way he paused.

 The way he watched me.

He knew when I said something he didn’t like, too.

He’d flatten his ears, just slightly.

A warning.

Say that again.

Copper never kicked me.

Not once.

But others?

That was a different story.

He sent my mother to the hospital.

More than once.

My brother, too.

And to be clear—my brother deserved it.

Copper didn’t tolerate cruelty.

Not toward me.

Not toward himself.

And in a world where I had very little protection…

That mattered.

He became something of a legend.

People knew.

Don’t mess with the boy with the horse.

On weekends, I would ride him home.

Children would gather along the road, offering apples, bananas, whatever they had. They’d pat him, laugh, reach out.

And for a moment—

everything felt normal.

But life has a way of circling back.

And just as quickly as it gives…

it takes.

To be continued.

This piece has been shaped for clarity and flow.

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