The Horse And His Tailor

THE HORSE AND HIS TAILOR

 A Strange Fable for the End of the World

 By Mason Absher

Once… in a time that wasn’t quite a time…

there lived a tailor.

And this tailor…

had a dream.

Not of riches.

Not of fame.

He wanted to dress a horse.

Not just cover it.

Not blanket or saddle.

But trousers.

Shirts with buttons.

A little vest with a pocket where the horse could put… something. Anything. A leaf, maybe.

People laughed.

Of course they did.

You cannot dress a horse, they said.

They do not care for fashion.

They are beasts. They do not blush. They do not browse.

But the tailor said only:

“Wait.”

And he began to sew.

He started small.

A scarf.

Just a scarf.

Something soft, something the wind could pull at.

The horse blinked.

Snorted.

Tried to eat it.

(Beat.)

But it wore it.

For one full hour.

That… was enough.

The tailor came every day.

With new things.

A sleeve.

A boot.

A belt that served no purpose except to look just slightly dramatic.

And the horse… learned.

It learned how to step into trousers.

How to tolerate buttons.

How to swish with style.

And the tailor smiled.

He never forced.

He waited.

He praised.

He whispered:

“Yes, my beautiful idiot. You are magnificent.”

Years passed.

And one day…

the horse changed clothes.

On its own.

It chose blue.

A crushed velvet vest.

The one with gold thread that shimmered like pond water in moonlight.

And the tailor wept.

Quietly.

Into his thimble.

And then…

at the end of his life,

with no heirs, no shop, no plaque to his name—

he stood beside that splendid, vest-wearing horse

and said, simply:

“Change, change, change your clothes, you lovely horse.”

And the horse did.

And that is the story.

Of a tailor.

A horse.

And a miracle made one button at a time.