Ambrose Ambles

 

Twelve Caesars.

Book one…”Christopher Corridini”.

( terzo ).

I have had the fortune to witness both sides of the coin of education…once, when a younger man, I tried to gain entry to higher education so as to lift my low level of studied knowledge..I was then rejected…Again in my later years I took time to study my favourite subject of Roman History in a mature entry scheme in my application alongside the necessities of earning a living in my trade in building. Of the first, I write of the experience here..:

Warming the Seat / Keeping it Warm.

#1 : “ The British school system had, and still has, a delightful system where snivelling little faggs served bozers. Tasks included cleaning, running around, and warming toilet seats…  Faggs who showed themselves to a better class of fagg were given the opportunity to become bozers themselves, and bully the living shit out of the new faggs. “

#2 : “Fagg or Faggs may refer to:

Fagging was a traditional practice in British boarding private schools (nearly all “public schools” in the English sense) and also many other boarding schools, whereby younger pupils were required to act as personal servants to the most senior boys.”

There was a time in my younger years where at the age of around twenty seven, I’d had enough of the building trade for a while and there was a scheme offered to those who had left school early and would like to continue with their education at a tertiary level, using their work experience as “points” toward an acceptance into university (limited courses, of course!)…I filled out the documentation, sat in a hall doing a test with a couple hundred other applicants, was accepted for an interview assessment and attended on the allotted date.

I have a exacting, clear, concise memory of the resulting insult. I also have, in retrospect, an insight into the real intent of that interview..; Less a assessment than a filtering out of the non  “consciousness of kind.” I was “interviewed” by two people, students themselves, a young man and a young woman, who after examining my application and work records, declined my application on the grounds that (and I can still hear her voice) ;

“While you have a lot of experience in the manual work field, you do not have a good record in the higher education area (I had left high school to take up an apprenticeship at fifteen) and without that record of capability to apply yourself to higher education, we cannot be certain that you will be able to complete your education.”

That’s some catch; that Catch 22.

My query about my years in apprenticeship studies were swept away as inconsequential.

I received the formal refusal in my letterbox some time later..I was to learn from a more informed source years later that those so-called “available seats” for working people to complete their education was in reality an opening for “suitable” persons of middle-class status who had started their tertiary education years before, but through one reason or another had cut short their study and left university…leaving open a spot for their return, keeping in mind that in those days, only the more wealthy could afford a university education.. so in effect ; “keeping the seat warm”.

It still rankles ; that interview…and I recall my response to the insulting suggestion that perhaps I was seeking more the “status” of university cred' rather than academic advancement…fuckin’ little eastern suburbs poncy pricks!

“I NEED the education, NOT the kudos!” was my terse response ..and with that I terminated the “interview.” It is the bitterness from that insulting moment that fixed the “chip on the shoulder” of my attitude toward the “consciousness of kind” middle class.

“It lies in the nature of the case that this appointing power will tend to create a faculty after its own kind. It will be quick to recognize efficiency within the lines of its own interests, and slower to see fitness in those lines that lie outside of its horizon, where it must necessarily act on outside solicitation and hearsay evidence.” (Thorsten Veblen).

This maintaining of status in the perception of a University Education comes at a cost..and with the changed financial arrangements these days, the integrity of the education institution is gambled on numbers of “bums on seats” verses “academic integrity” It is therefore imperative that a continuity of curriculum delivery and conservative standard of quality is promoted around the institution name (even if such standards no longer exist), academic staff and curriculum of the institution ; a) Firstly to  impress the ideal that here, is solid knowledge, confirmed by assiduous study and research. b) Secondly to set a fixed base of expected acceptable standards of attainment in academic excellence.

But one has to ask ; Are these standards more a bar set to a height most favourable to that class that moves in a unbroken, smooth transition from private school to University of choice to network of employment without disruption of the continuity of  curriculum? A curriculum designed to facilitate the most capable along with the most obtuse in a wide swathe of  middle-class benefit.

I read that in the current govt’(year; 2020) the Liberal National Party. has a proportion of 82%  from private school education…even the Labor Party has a more modest 53%…But what encourages these privileged kids to pursue their political ambitions? What is the motivation that promotes such (in some cases ) futile and buffoonery ambition?

I suspect a certain directional encouragement within the Humanities and Social Sciences, via a distortion of history displaying a kind of “continuity of privilege and expectation” in the upper strata of society in a lineal continuity from exclusive primary school through exclusive private secondary school through to “Sandstone University”..The entrenchment of the “born to rule” philosophy.

I recall my time when I finally did get to university as a now much more mature student studying my favourite “Classical History” subjects, thinking and talking to other much younger students about my doubts of the “authenticity” of the Roman History curriculum we were being taught…:

“There’s something not quite right about how it all “fits” so neatly together”..I used to say to one young bloke..” like it’s been strained through a filter of acceptable choreographed political outcome working back with political hindsight…more to suit the Queen Victorian era of justification of empire , than a record of such a dirty history”.

And I remember several tutorials where an older lecturer was locum’d in to replace a sick lecturer..I could see his notes, all yellowed with age and dog eared with use and he prattled on in a time-line continuity from the ill lecturer, like there was no interruption in the calm-oiled sea of imperial history..All was right, all was as ordained by a higher order..Caesar conquered; as was required, Cleopatra; the upstart was conquered; as was needed, Augustus brought a “Pax Romana” upon the Empire as was his right ..:

Dieu et mon droit.

One day , coming out of a classics tutorial, one young “eastern suburbs” thing angrily expressed to me..

“Don’t ask so many questions..or we’ll be in there forever!”

“Why not..don’t you want to learn history?”..This response was met with a wrinkled nose and look of disdain.

But of course not…such graduates of  private colleges and grammar schools already know the script…They do not need ancient hstory to teach them anything! They knew before they got to Uni’…before they got to their private colleges..before they went to primary school.. kindergarten even!…They knew from the earliest time of their conscious memory that they belonged to the “correct class of people”…their parents could have made their money shipping arms to a despot ruler or illicit drugs to desperate people..as many of them did! …it would not matter…as long as they had their BSB. Taxation File Number. THEY had the blessings of THE post code!…THE correct connections. THE high social circles….They did not need to learn the machinations of late empire politics, after all..THEY owned it! They only needed  to get those academic points on their student record sheet so they could pass Uni’. and Classics was seen as a “Mickey Mouse” course easily navigated through to pick up half a doz’ easy academic points toward that w / honours graduation..and woe betide any lecturer that under marks their little pet. And then collect that promised trip to a London “sabbatical” year in a flat in The Barbican..or that little sporty car number…or some such promised reward.

After all…THEIR future employment and placement in the higher strata of society has already been assured.

“As has already been remarked, these directive boards, committees, and chiefs of bureau are chosen, in great part, for their businesslike efficiency, because they are good office-men, with “executive ability”; and the animus of these academic businessmen, by so much, becomes the guiding spirit of the corporation of learning, and through their control it acts intimately and pervasively to order the scope and method of academic instruction. This permeation of the university’s everyday activity by the principles of competitive business is less visible to outsiders than the various lines of extraneous enterprise already spoken of, but it touches the work within the university proper even more radically and insistently; although, it is true, it affects the collegiate (undergraduate) instruction more immediately than what is fairly to be classed as university work. The consequences are plain. Business proficiency is put in the place of learning. It is said by advocates of this move that learning is hereby given a more practical bent; which is substantially a contradiction in terms. It is a case not of assimilation, but of displacement and substitution, garnished with circumlocution of a more or less ingenuous kind.”

Such graduates of  privilege need only to have all their prejudices of “born to rule” bound and framed in a gilt-edged justification. Disingenuous historical example can supply this. metaphorically inlaid with filigreed coat-of-arms and the family motto : “Non Cineadus Meus” scripted clearly, all supplied and wrapped and tied with a blue ribbon security by their elders and mentors.

And THAT is why we end up with such shit-faced conservative politicians screwing up the country.

For as “The Good Book” says…: “So it is written”.

Nb…All quotes were from Thorsten Veblen…”The Theory of the Leisure Class”..

 ..The second was an evolving education over many years that started with the basic trade skills learned through apprenticeship schooling and tradesmen on site…BUT…the difference being that in my trade education, it was not good enough to rest on the laurels of what was taught from text and tongue so many years before, because with the rapid changes of engineering brought about by technological advances of materials used in building, from solid timbers to laminates, from sheet-plywood to pressed-fibre board…from close column short-span capability to vast open-plan buildings, one’s “education” in the art of construction had to be continually upgraded (as in any hands-on professional skill like nursing etc) with both knowledge of technical capability and one’s own use of trade tools to construct with such materials in a new age of building technology….one became master of one’s knowledge…AND alongside that work-experience-knowledge, many like myself also greedily consumed the books of classic literature in our spare time…the consumption of which was not from drear study for diploma, but from a love of the deeper knowledge gleaned within…AND…complimented by our own skill-base knowledge to “join-those-dots” that gave credibility and a pragmatic reality to what we read of those magnificent works like Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall”..or Theodor Mommsen’s “History of Rome”, where “talk” of the construction of empires matched in metaphor against practical knowledge of physical realities of bricks and mortar construction of civic buildings still extant in ancient cities, connected the dots of command to deed. This shows something of the enthusiasm that in those conversations I have had with the more orthodox educated…those of the patented school of education…that seems to be sadly lacking!

And now, at an advanced age, I have come to realise that I have no emotional connection to those “usurpers of knowledge” ..and I have little enthusiasm left to listen to THEIR waffling…Theirs is all talk..all theory..all impotent inaction…all useless…for here we are so many years down the track and STILL we flounder in work security..in quality of employment, in aged care, health and any number of administrative areas of governance managed by those “higher-learned” managers, that have been slashed and destroyed by those who ought to know better… I have learned from many skilled, aged working people more wisdom of how a society IS constructed…more knowledge from skilled tradespeople how ancient societies were physically constructed and more knowledge of where we must go to revitalise our society to a healthy state from the bleedin’ obvious practicalities of community connections and a trade-skilled base, than I will tolerate from the babbling lectures of a cabal of “educated to imbecility” politicians with all the plastered-on doctorates and degrees that cover the walls of their cocoons of pretentious buffoonery, yet cannot even accept the bleeding obvious on a changing climate!

Those “suits” of middle-class management professionals have NOTHING to offer us…NOTHING of consequence in the administration of governance or law that we..working-class people cannot draw from our own resources or coupled with honest and sincere professionals to compensate any shortfall in knowing how to enact…and better that we learn…even WITH mistakes.. from judicious application with honest intent than from hard lessons of being short-changed and cheated by that same coterie of middle-class poltroons and swindlers….

As much as it sounds too crazy and a tad too radical, there is nothing for it but for us of the working-classes / producing classes to rip the levers of control of our nation from the reckless, degenerate hands of the middle-class rulers…they have ruined a once good economy and society…and driven so many good people into the pits of despair…so we now have neither community nor secure future..a despair that seems almost impossible to climb out of…they must be stopped.

Away with all pests!

So in these later years, after a long working life in the building trade, I retired and fell to writing memories and experiences in the genre of stories and cameos of the situations and characters that I came across through those working years..It is a complicated thing, juggling one’s trade work around customer wants and needs..those requirements sometimes not even being known completely by the customer themselves..because it soon becomes clear that one’s requirement as a tradesman is secondary to a customer’s need for advice or consultation on more than just the subject of building. There were times when I thought my trade services were hired for little more than company for the client..there were other times when it was just an embarrassment for us both..like on one one job where the customer, an elderly woman was explaining the detail of her requirements when her husband suddenly appeared around the corner..fortunately shielded from the waist down by a low parapet wall, for the lady, turning to see her husband there, quietly, without fuss said to him..:

“John..go inside and put some trousers on.”….He had this goofy kind of smile on his face and it was obvious by his vague looks and movement that he was suffering from some sort of senile illness..and him being once the state office head of an international corporation…This and similar kinds of situations impressed on my memory the divergence of stories in people’s lives way above the hum-drum of everyday existence.

The love stories, tragedies and the banal all lent themselves to a plethora of tales and cameos that I have scribbled down in my retirement. Of course, I did write many stories down while still in my working life…stories that couldn’t wait lest they be forgotten or wasted by the overburden of work detritus..But then I was married with a young family to support..what turned out to be, except for the children, a wasted marriage as we both ended going in different directions..

The Gelded Stallion.

Martin Menzell was getting old. Martin was of the generation from the era before the war when horse power was the major means of farming production..before tractors became more efficient and the horse era was brought to a sudden and inglorious end..who could have foreseen that the development of those brutal machines of war, would make for the development of the tractor to become the machine for farming that would completely, in such a short space of time, sideline the draught-horse as the work-horse of agriculture. Gone in an instant was all those allied trades and skills that supported and surrounded the horse industry for uncounted millennia…all the experts in breeding, breaking and training horses in so many communities..gone also were the farriers, blacksmiths, saddlers and harness makers and repairers…and the conversations at store and hotel moved from muscle and hoof to the mechanics of this or that machinery.

An era of companionship in leisure and labour between horse and man, that had stood for uncountable millennia had passed.

Martin Menzell watched with concerned eye this passing of an era..He first had an inkling of it when old Glastonbury retired and on-sold one of the first cumbersome tractors that came to the district..a great lump of a thing called ; “A Lanz Bulldog”…sure, it could pull its weight on the plough and then some, but it was a beast of a thing to get started and the noise , and the smell and the fuel it needed was filthy and most distressingly..it scared the horses!….But when old man Glastonbury retired, young Rosenswietz made a lunge to buy that tractor quick-smart that demonstrated an eagerness for this new age of machine driven farming that gave warning to Martin Menzell that here was a thing whose moment had come..and it was coming to stay.

Martin was worried.

Martin loved his horses.

But Martin was getting old.

There were still several horses that he kept as personal companions that connected him to a passed age. He had relinquished the running of the farm several years before to his two daughters, his only children for he had no son…after his wife passed away.. The daughters too had an affinity for horses, but in a more “sport-horse” capacity…that is, they worked and trained them for equestrian competition like dressage or Hacking events…an occupation that Martin scorned as frivolous and undignified for serious horse breeding and working.

Martin kept his skills and observing eye to himself regarding what HE thought would make for a good breed of horse…and on that matter, he had his eye on a mare of his own that he had for some time considered good brood stock for a likely stallion. Many times he could be seen leaning over the rails of the mare’s yard watching her movements closely…Her stepping movements. The muscular frame of her body..strength of the forequarter and hindquarter…the swing in her trot or canter..that shimmer of her coat…but most of all was this instinct for the whole picture of the mare..an instinct cultivated over so many years of handling, breaking and grooming of those beasts..yes…he was thinking..there is a good brood mare…and he knew just the right stallion he would want to mate her with.

Another old friend from the days of serious horse farming, Charlie Kruger had just the stallion Martin had in mind…Charlie had paid a tidy sum for him back in the day and was charging more than Martin could afford for a mare servicing..but that was then…Similar health problems coming with ageing were troubling Charlie Kruger now and Martin heard that Charlie’s stallion ; “Nobleman” would soon be put up for sale.. Martin approached his old friend and made him an offer that Charlie accepted with the rider that any foal could not be signed off on a breed certificate as a progeny of “Nobleman”, as the mare had no breeding papers….and the pair of horses were left in a yard to “go about their business” once the mare came on season.

The mating was successful and in due course, fortune came forward and a colt was born.. and what a fine colt he was…and once weaned, the colt’s body and frame started to really develop into a fine figure of a future stallion…and he named this stallion ; “Ctesephon”, pronounced ; Tesephon..after the ancient capital of Persia…yes…he thought..a noble name for a noble beast…A dark Bay coloured horse with black lower legs without blotch nor blemish…and just a splotch of white on its forehead..a beautiful beast. 

Martin knew he no longer had the physical strength to break the stallion, so when Ctesephon was two years old, he called in a local young man that he knew was up to the job… Gary Sommer…and under Martin’s tutelage and Gary’s skilled nerve, they gradually brought Ctesephon under the control of bridle, bit and saddle without breaking that glorious strut, trot and canter of the beast…he truly was a magnificent animal..and once he was good enough for Martin to lunge, they would go to the Round Yard and Martin would put Ctesephon through his paces, developing his frame and balancing his movements, so that when he trotted or cantered, it was with an unfaltering stride and with his head in perfect symmetry to his pushing steps…Martin would never tire of admiring that marvellous beast and he felt more than a little proud that his breeding judgement was proven so sound with this fine example of equine purity..

Martin held the lunge rope and put Ctesephon into a fast trot, holding him in the frame so he could study the stride and pitch of the body..

He was as a butterfly in a flock of moths. He bounced on his hooves with all the grace of a prancing pony, circling, lifting,  dipping, feinting. He floated in the air at times with what seemed all four hooves off the ground and Martin found he could time Ctesephon’s strides with a snap of his fingers…Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!…and the horse’s muscles flexed and pumped out shimmering waves of his coat with a combination of controlled speed and controlled step like some boxing greats.

“He’s like a Panther with a pretty face.” Said Gary as he watched from the rails….Yes..Martin agreed he’s almost like a big cat stalking around the yard…beautiful.

Martin would spend hours training and grooming his steed over many months..

But Martin was getting old.

One day, one of the daughters found Martin laying on the couch in his “Granny flat” in a frozen immovable state…he had suffered a stroke…and for a long time, he was at death’s door…then came the struggle in convalescence and then in rehabilitation, for Martin had lost much of his capacity to move around or speak and even to comprehend what was being spoken to him..so it was a good nine months before he could ask or be told of events down on the property.

When Martin did finally get the chance to lucidly put words together, it was to ask of Ctesephon..

“Fine..He’s fine..” said his eldest daughter, Fiona…” He’s down the back paddock fattening up on the new growth grass there..he’s just fine..”

Fiona was the more authoritative of Martin’s two daughters…it was she who managed the property once Martin relinquished it to his daughters…and it was Fiona who changed the business model from an agricultural system to primarily an equestrian centre with indoor arena, where the more affluent of the district would congregate and take lessons or agist their horses…the younger daughter, Kaylene, was more of the party animal type and though she too was keen on the equestrian side , she had little to do with the management of the business and followed..albeit insubordinately…her older sister’s instructions.

“Is he being worked? “ Martin mumbled out…There was a pause before Fiona answered.

“ He’s ….resting..” she cautiously replied.

“Better get young Gary to keep working him…it won’t be good to leave off with the training at this young age..”

Fiona stopped folding some items she had brought there for Martin and sat gingerly on the edge of the bed…she clasped her hands together on her lap and spoke..

“Gary doesn’t come to the farm anymore….I had to let him go.”

“Why?…he’s a strapping young lad..I’d think he’d be quite useful to do the heavy lifting there on the farm.”

Fiona averted her eyes and replied..

“That’s the problem…he was a bit too much of the “strapping young lad”   at least as far as Kaylene was concerned….He’s too much of a distraction for her and the other girls working there..”

“What girls..they’re all grown women!” Martin exclaimed. “Kay’ must be..oh, twenty eight by now..that’s a grown woman in my book..your mother was younger when we married…mind you, I was much older than her..but she had you two by the time she was twenty five!…would’ve had more but for Kaylene’s difficult pregnancy!”

“ That was then, dad…now, thirty is the new twenty..and Kay’ still acts like a young teenager..Look ( and Fiona stood up from the bed and with hands on her hips, she confronted her father with her explanation )….if you are so convinced that Kaylene is the grown woman I’ll tell you about her.. I was walking past the feed room a while back and I heard a noise from inside and while the door was shut, I could see through that hole where the old lock was ..and there was Kaylene flat-strap on her back on the lucerne bales with her ankles up by her ears and with Gary giving her a lot of what YOUR generation so crudely calls ‘ ‘ow’s yer father’ …so there’s your “grown woman”..

“Oh…” Martin mumbled..” Did you confront her about it ?”

“I did..and I said that I saw what she and Gary were up to in the feed room…but the only reply I got was a casual..”Did you dear?”…and with a slap of her riding crop on her jodhpurs, she walked away..Well, I told Gary I didn’t need him there any more and I paid him off”.

“The cheeky little sprite!” and Martin chuckled “ Oh well..your mother and I were no better behaved when we were young….I remember one time after a local dance….”

“I don’t want to know!” Fiona quickly and sharply interjected..and she gathered her purse and things to go..

“Well, you better think of getting him back to do some work on Ctesephon..because I won’t be back on line for quite a while and you can’t let a stallion stand idle…they’re troublesome…like young strapping lads..” and he gave Fiona a wink on her parting.

It was several weeks before Martin could get back to his home on the property and then only move about the granny-flat with the help of a walking frame or a stick on some days…His speech had almost completely restored, but his left side leg and arm were only partially useful..but he still insisted on doing for himself as much as possible…the only fly in the ointment at this juncture was his concern for Ctesephon and the lack of training he was getting…he decided to ring Gary himself and get him to come over.

“ Oh..hello, Martin” Gary answered the phone “How you getting on?…You home yet?”

“Yeah, I’m home and I’m still ratshit!…can only get around with this bloody frame… or a stick…it’s shithouse…say..how about you coming over an’ helping me?”

“What for…changing the nappy?” and he laughed.

“Don’t be a smart-arse, young whipper-snapper…I’m talking about Ctesephon…he needs working.”

“Don’t you know I’m banned…?”

“That’s your fault…don’t you know not to take your honey where you make your money?…and anyway..I’m unbanning you..I need your help with Ctesephon.”

“Why..the girls can manage him now..can’t they?”

“NO they can’t!” Martin yelled into the phone “I saw him drag Fiona about the yard just yesterday..he’s too much of a handful for her.”

“Hrumph!” Gary grunted..” I suppose he’s still pissed off with them”…There was a silence from Martin’s end of the line and a cold fear came over him.

“What do you mean ;’pissed off’ ?” He asked…Gary twigged that he hadn’t been told…and while he regretted ever giving hint, it was too late now to avoid the issue…Martin would find out soon anyway.

“ They had him gelded”…there was a silence..so he continued..” about six months ago…didn’t they tell you?”….Gary could hear his own breathing…” They didn’t know if you were going to survive..and he was too much for any of the women to handle…and one day he broke out of his yard and there was all sorts of havoc…Fiona had to call me over to get him back into a yard…she was shitting herself he would get into the mare’s paddock”…there was silence on the line..then it went dead.

That night when he sat to dinner with Fiona, half way through his meal, Martin carefully put his knife and fork down and sat up straight in his chair…never one to beat about the bush he straight up asked his daughter..

“When did you think you would tell me about gelding Ctesephon?”…Fiona stopped eating and with cutlery in hand paused while she cogitated on her answer.

“Soon…very soon…..Look…I had no choice…I suppose you got the news from Gary?”

“Yeah…I got the news from Gary…said you couldn’t handle him”. Martin spoke sarcastically…Fiona placed her cutlery on the table..

“You heard of the break-out then..I was at wits end how to manage him”

“And THAT’S the crux of it all…YOU couldn’t “manage” the stallion…like YOU couldn’t “manage” Gary with Kaylene..so you bent both situations to YOUR will…your control..you gelded both situations.” Martin wiped his lips and flung the napkin to the table.

“That’s right!” Fiona, now angry also..shouted ..” I couldn’t manage him…NONE of us women could..he was too fierce…too strong…the vet had to tranquilise him with a gun just to get near him!”

“What did you expect..He was a solid built stallion..NOT some poncy, prancing pony…You should’ve called Gary in…HE could manage him”

“ Oh yes!..’get Gary’…’Get Martin’….’Get the men in to help the girls manage a situation’…I COULD manage it…just NOT in the way YOU would let me…”…Fiona shouted across the table…Martin pshawwed the comment..Fiona continued ” Yes..and while we’re at it, perhaps YOU can tell me what else I am supposed to do with a stallion that no-one except your ‘darlin’ Gary’ could ride..a stallion no-one would want the foal from seeing as it has no breeding history save a stallion from some MATE of yours and bloody “Stumpy the mare”…” all this with Fiona stabbing her finger in the air and making inverted comma signs with her hands..

“He was a bloody perfect breed…you could see it in his frame, his stride, his movement, his muscle structure…a beautiful boy ..you don’t need any PAPERS to tell you that.”

“Yes…he’s a beautiful boy alright..a stunner…but not worth a red-cent as far as people in the industry go…There is no-one in this era that has use for an idle stallion that has no breeding heritage and no re-sale value save for a school horse..anybody with the amount of cash needed and willing to pay the big-bickies for a bred horse in this game will want their bloodline papers to show breeding that goes back to William The Conqueror!!…It’s all show-pony now, Dad..There’s no horse-drawn ploughs any more…there’s no milk-oh wagons plodding the streets either…and no-one has a sulky or cart that needs a horse in harness…”…and here Fiona softened her voice…” . . . and seriously..we didn’t know if you were even going to survive the stroke…or if you did you’d perhaps be a vegetable…I had to make a decision and that breakout made it for me.”

“ That’s the trouble, isn’t it…that’s EXACTLY the trouble…there’s no use even for such a beautiful example of a beast of nature just to admire…a perfect specimen…save for what can be got from it…if it can’t be “managed”, it can’t be of any value…it’s no wonder they can’t even sing a decent song anymore”…and Martin got up and left the table and hobbled with his walking frame back to his flat.

It was the early hours of the very next morning, with the wind bustling the branches and leaves of the low trees about the property, that Martin opened the door of his flat and with a long bag slung over his shoulder and his weakened body being supported by a walking frame, Martin made his way cautiously to the horse yard where Ctesephon was held…upon arrival at the rails, he pulled out some cut carrots from his coat pocket..and motioning toward Ctesephon, he called him to the rails..

Ctesephon recognised his master and also saw the carrots and he came to the rails..

“Ah, yes…can’t resist a carrot, eh, “Tessi”…Martin crooned…”My goodness, you’re still a fine looking boy..if one can call you a “boy” any more…they called men who had their balls cut off ; ‘Castrati’ back in the days when they did such things to humans…what am I to call you?..hmm…my beautiful fellow…my beautiful boy…yes…you’re still my beautiful boy..”and dropping several carrots onto the ground in front of him, so that the gelded stallion bent his head to pick at the reward..Martin caressingly stroked Ctesephon’s face…and then, lifting the long bag there that he had prepared before he came down to the yard, Martin unzipped the end and reaching his arm into the bag to cradle the trigger of the twelve-gauge shotgun loaded with a solid-slug 12-bore shell, he lifted bag and all so as not to alarm the horse to point it to the correct place on the gelded stallion’s head..and with a final “Goodbye old mate”….he pulled the trigger..

(To be continued).