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February 2008 • VOLUME 30 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
The Pain of Silence The cougar had slashed deeply into the underbelly of her prey. Her talons struck true and sank into the warm flesh, she flexed her claws and with a slight twist they ripped through the soft skin, sank deep into pulsing muscles and ripped those loose as well. With luck, the damage to her prey would weaken her prey even further so that she could follow and find the mare down, and weak. On the lonely savannah, the only sounds to be heard were the thundering of hooves slashing across the hard-packed dirt, the spitting and snarl of the wild cat, as she squinted through the dust that made her nose sneeze, but no sound escaped from the bleeding and torn abdomen, nor from the lips of the prey. The silence of the young mare made her seem ghost-like, so eerie that no sound passed her lips. No grunt of pain, no squeal of distress, no sobs of ..... The silence continued. The only sign of pain or trouble perhaps came in the increased labouring of her breath. Her hooves continued to strike sharply, powering her away from those deadly fangs and claws.But her breathing mimicked the drumming of her heart, a clamour that drowned out any other sounds in her ears. She was hurt. Seriously hurt, suffering, but her will to live and her fear kept her feet flying across patches of grass and moonlit sand and dirt. Eventually the herd slowed down. The mare, trembling, continued her terrible silence. How awful to be in pain, how much more awful to be in pain and not be able to find a release, any release. No sweet release in tears to flow down from her harried and worried brown eyes, dark with pain. No release through a sharp scream of pain then or now. Survival demanded silence. No matter how severe the pain, actually the more severe, the more a harsh mother nature demanded that silence was the price for life. Whether it was in the moments of bringing new life into the world or in the moment when serious damage was inflicted. Screams and cries of pain would only alert the many predators that awaited. The price of relief was that it let the predator know here was one that was weak, here was one that was hurt, here was one that would be easier to kill and eat. The survival of the predator and her cubs depended on finding food that would not fight back seriously so that you were damaged, or sometimes just depended on food that could be caught. Thus there would be no release, never a release, delegated by mother nature to have no voice. No right to cry out to the heavens at the injustice of it all. You are to suffer in silence. Anyone who has ever been made to suffer in silence knows the pain that silence can bring. Where once upon a time living in the wild demanded that survival required a voice of silence, now living with humans that same requirement of silence that once saved your life, is a burden and perhaps some might say even a curse. The dog yelps, the cat screeches, the mother cries, the horse...
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