The fence.

"Did you really think that was going to work??" hinnied the horse.

"It's up! It's standing! Why are you being so contradictive??"spouted the old man with furrowed brow.

"You just put this thing here because you don't love me anymore" hoarsly quipped the mare.

"Its not a question of emotions, its a purely practical matter. Without a fence havoc will arise, and personal boundaries will be infringed on. Here, read this" impatiently a pamphlet swopped hands.

"Ahaaa, ok now I get it"

Nodded horse sarcasticly.

"You know" said the latter, "I'm think of getting in the films again".

Shut up.

The horse couldn't tell who said that so he concentrated himself on the fence again.

"Couldn't you have painted it a prettier color?" he nagged

"Look I painted it aubergine, it don't get any fancier than that" grumped the grump

"Hmm"

Horse's thoughts wondered again"If you had seen me in that 1976 flick with Clint, you wouldn't have thought so lightly about what color this fence was... Clint was such a darling"

The grass shuddered slightly, the grumpy mans clothes lifted a little and a couple of the horse's tail hairs tickled his hind leg.

Creek. Crak.

The Grump turned around to see his lifelong buddy step outside onto the front porch of their hillside abode.

The buddy's Christian name was Harry, and though he liked the sound of it, he never really understood why he couldn't just have been called Harold.

He had the time he had the time to change, he didn't want to change but now that he thought he was going to he didn't think that it wouldn't happen.

He walked down the steps, with mere throws of his legs and nestled his worn shoes into the inviting soil.

Hands casually in his wide pockets he sighed his way over to the unlikely pair.

"Boys, I can hear you two hollerin' from the back room, keep it down will ya now?"

He realised he could have been the type of guy to have just shouted it from the frontdoor, but then concluded that he liked being a thorough man. Its not often one encounters a soul willing to go all the way in an act. Someone who knows that they will be there from start to finish. Harry knew what he wanted: quiet and his books.

One wouldn't consider a friend of a grumpy old man as a literature afficionado, but Harry was one. He had a collection of dusty library books and he traded them in regularly for a new ones. He knew he might never read them all, but he thought he might atleast be consistent with his thoroughness.

He also liked old French movies. Though he had no idea what they were saying, he liked the statuesque faces the actors made after their twittering monologues dotted a comical stream of oboe flutters.

"I can't even concentrate on the last couplet of King Lear" he added to emphasise the intrusion of the unwanted volumes.

"Harry, you old fool, why do you have to insist on complaining about everything? We were just discussing this new fence I most generously put up last night while you two lazy ones had long hit the sack" retorted the grump.

"Yes, we were discussing the pros and cons of my film career as well" insisted the animal, but with little effect.

"Fence? Ah. An unsightly blemish on our pasture"Harold concluded and walked back, as he had out, with hands lost in pockets.

"Blemish?? This is not miss Arizona's face we're having to upkeep here Harry, its pure and simple divisions...Harry?? HARRY!".

His neck had at this point stretched much further than a common tortoise and realising this himself he slowly sunk back into his checkered blouse, turning his attention back to a more resonable opponent. The horse.

The grumpy man had not always been dubbed as such, he actually, as everyone else we hope, had been given a name by his mother. Paul found sooner and not much later in his life that being termed "The Grump" was much more satisfying than being called Paulie, Paulo, Paulkins or any other varient of the kind.

The reason he had become an noun-turned-adjective, was because he was indeed rather grumpy most of the time. This doesn't mean he wasn't a lot of fun to hang around with, it only means that he was often rather annoyed by it.

The grump blankly stared at his hairy opponent. He suddenly had the urge to kiss the spot right between the creature's eyes but of course abstained himself. The cloud spotted sun intermittantly made that very spot shine like silk only known by the original weaver's fingers.

He imagined the horse made up of crosshatched electrical wires and then the creator delicately adding one silk hair after another upon this celestial skeleton.

"Your smile reminds me of this girl I once knew in juvie" mentioned the celestial skeleton.

Realising his drole daydream, the grump snapped out of it and focused on the task at hand.

What task? The fence was built. End of story.

The grump decided that if he walked away all would be solved. He swung his shoulder around and headed off to his house.

"Hold on a minute? And the fence? It stays here? Long and ugly and and in the way?".

Horse's questions tried to catch up with the grump but were too slow.

"Turn to channel 3, Les coeurs d'un profondeur is on. Its in french and you won't understand it, but it is one of my favourites and it will make you understand about the fence,"wisdomed the grump as his hands pushed his legs to get up the porch steps.

"How do you know that?" questioned the still unsatisfied silken horse.

"I will hide it from you no longer. We can now share things of love, as a master never could and a neighbor only will"



There was once a fence that stretched miles into the distance. Two old men lived on one side of the fence and a horse on the other. They were good neighbors.