Thursday, February 13, 2014

Apocalypse Thanksgiving


After the apocalypse, renegade hordes of fake-tan polo players rode their ponies through the streets using their polo mallets to whack decapitated heads with. They rode through the avenues, the by-ways and out around through the countryside. Their long-legged ponies trampled seedlings and sod like buffalo herds grinding grassy plains. The men kept their chins tucked and their white and red helmets securely strapped. Post apocalyptic polo was a serious game. They gave no quarter and took no prisoners. Who ever fell behind, got left behind and no residuals were given to the families of the fallen. 

The mounted gamesmen swung their mallets with acuity, striking any orphaned skull with gusto. Little boys in white undershirts and sun lighten hair watched the cavalier polo riders from behind elm trees that lined matured boulevards. Visions of envy danced in their young, sky-tinted eyes as their hearts beat faster and they unconsciously scratched at their belly buttons. 

The hard ridden ponies frothed around their bits and their manes tangled in the reins. The polo players kicked their mount’s bellies with rich leather boots polished to a high shine. Abruptly, at the end of an unkept park pasture, the players rode up upon an old cemetery. A battered head with it's esophagus trailing was cracked high into the air, over the iron fence, landing with a dull thud in the middle of the cemetery. 

The players pursued, goading their mounts around tombstones and ricocheting the head off marble and granite monuments like a snooker ball. This play occupied their focus for a long time. Long enough for a scant number of spectators to spontaneously gather. Their eyes grew wide at the garish spectacle. If any of the onlookers took sides, they didn't outwardly show it. The game of head polo continued into the early evening, splattering almost every gravestone with stains of blood. No one saw it happen directly, but a player and his horse collided with a tombstone and went down followed by another. 

The still mounted players viciously began attacking the dismounted ones, striking them with their grim mallets. They continued to mindlessly attack each other as more riders went down. The cemetery seemed bent on claiming it's own victory. The post apocalyptic polo player's soon dwindled in number. The sick cracking sounds from their mallets became fewer.  Soon all the polo players lay dead amongst the stone markers, the cemetery lawn awash with fresh, ebbing blood. 

The loosely gathered spectators stood mute. Their boney hands grasped the iron rods of the cemetery’s fence. Then almost as if acting as one hive mind, they entered the hallowed grounds and began dressing out the bodies of the fallen polo players, removing their entrails and dismembering their arms and legs, leaving the heads where they lay.  The spectators then took the spoils back to their hovels and basements and cooked the delicacies in a feast of thanksgiving. 

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