An arrogant millionaire decided to mock a homeless man by giving him an old, lame, and seemingly useless horse, just to laugh at his misery. But what no one expected was what the homeless man did with that horse. What happened next not only left the millionaire speechless but also shocked the entire city.
“Move it, old man!” the driver yelled without slowing down. Samuel barely managed to turn his body to avoid being run over. The car grazed his threadbare jacket, leaving a cloud of dust that stinged his eyes. He coughed once, then kept walking, pulling a rusty cart full of empty bottles and pieces of cardboard. No one greeted him.
No one asked if he needed anything. It was Thursday, market day, and the square was bustling with life, for everyone but him. He sat in his usual corner, behind an old, disused kiosk, where the sun was slow to rise and the wind blew strongest. From there he watched the world go by without him.
Mothers with bags of fruit, men in expensive suits, children running after balls. A parade of other people’s lives. By mid-morning, he noticed unusual activity. Luxury SUVs, colorful flags, loudspeakers testing the sound. It was the prelude to the royal auction, an annual event where the town’s wealthy displayed their power by bidding for elite horses, not out of need, but for spectacle.
Samuel knew those animals well, well enough to recognize a good one just by looking at its hooves. But it had been years since he’d touched a horse. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d spoken to someone for more than two sentences at a time. As he watched, a smartly dressed young man walked past him.
He wore dark glasses, expensive sneakers, and a satisfied smile. He stopped, looked him up and down, then muttered something to his group of friends, and they continued walking, laughing. Samuel looked down. A woman threw a trash bag nearby. When she walked away, he approached. Inside, he found half an apple and a stale roll. He sat back down, chewing slowly, as if each bite deserved attention.
His stomach didn’t complain; he’d gotten used to it. By midday, the plaza was buzzing. Fences and chairs for the guests had been set up, along with a stage where the performances would soon begin. Samuel didn’t move. From his corner, he could watch without being seen. Some people knew him. “The crazy horse guy,” they murmured. No one knew where he came from or how he’d ended up on the street.
All they knew was that he was always there, silent, with eyes that seemed to observe more than they revealed. “Look at that mess,” a teenager said to his father, pointing at it with his chin. “Don’t look at it, son,” the man replied without breaking stride.
Samuel finished his bread, wiped the bits off his trousers with his dirty hands, and leaned back against the wall. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, but he wasn’t asleep. He never slept when there was noise. His body had grown accustomed to the constant tension, like an animal that knows it mustn’t let its guard down. When the loudspeakers began announcing the arrival of the horses, Samuel sat up not out of interest, but out of habit.
He watched from a distance as the animals were unloaded, one by one, by grooms in white shirts and gloves—large, gleaming animals, some of them purebred. And amidst this parade of pride, he, invisible as always, saw a young groom pass by with a glass of water. Samuel glanced at him for a second. The boy noticed and for an instant seemed to hesitate, but then continued on his way without offering him anything. “A ghost doesn’t get thirsty,” Samuel muttered to himself.
He spent the afternoon watching people applaud, laugh, and haggle. From his shadow, he seemed to belong to another world. No one pushed him, no one recognized him. Sometimes that hurt more than hunger. As the sun began to set, Samuel struggled to his feet. His bones creaked. He packed his few belongings into his cart and walked in the opposite direction from the festivities, but something, he couldn’t quite put his finger on, made him stop. He glanced back at the stage one last time.
He didn’t know that this would be the last time he would do so as a mere spectator, because what was about to happen would change his life forever. The stage lights came on just as the sun dipped behind the hills. The sky turned orange and purple, and the main square acquired that golden glow that sometimes beautifies even what doesn’t deserve beauty.
Samuel remained nearby, though somewhat apart, to one side of a closed booth. From there he could hear everything without being seen. The announcer came up, microphone in hand. He wore a red velvet jacket and had the smile of someone who felt he owned the occasion. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the royal auction of the town of San Gabriel!” he shouted amidst applause.
Tonight you will witness unique specimens, courage, blood, lineage, all gathered in this place for the most worthy, or at least the wealthiest. Laughter erupted among the attendees. Samuel swallowed hard. Those words, though spoken in jest, held the truth of that world, one where he no longer had a place.
The grooms began to parade with the horses. One by one, the animals were presented with exaggerated pomp, grandiose names, awards won, legendary sires. The attendees murmured, analyzed, and discreetly raised their hands to bid. “120,000 for Emperor of the North,” the auctioneer announced. Samuel narrowed his eyes.
He saw the animal: imposing, elegant, but also frightened. He recognized that trembling in its legs, that subtle sign of discomfort. He remembered seeing many horses like that when he worked in the fields years before. He could read them like people. To his right, among the spectators, Arnaldo sipped a cocktail without really looking at the arena.
He was surrounded by friends, all wearing tight shirts, expensive watches, and quick to laugh. The boy seemed more interested in impressing his companions than in the animals. “There’s no excitement here,” he complained, setting his glass down on a table. “It’s all so predictable.” “Do something fun then,” suggested a platinum-haired girl. Arnaldo smiled, and as he turned his head, his eyes found Samuel half-hidden, his beard unkempt and his skin tanned by the sun.
“I know what I’ll do,” he murmured, his eyes gleaming. “What if we give our favorite spectator a horse?” His friends immediately laughed. One of them, crueler than the rest, added, “But not a good one, let it be the worst of them all. That way he’ll have something to sleep on.” Arnaldo discreetly approached the organizer and whispered something in his ear.
He frowned, but the money offered dispelled any doubts. The next lot was announced as an exception. “Attention, attention,” said the presenter. “We now have a specimen. Let’s say different. A horse with no papers, no awards, no known history. Whoever acquires it does so at their own risk.”
Who dares? Silence. No one raised their hand. No one even looked at him. The horse was thin, grayish. It was visibly limping on one front leg and its left eye was veiled by a white mist. Its mane was matted, its ribs showing. 100 pesos, Arnaldo said aloud.
But on one condition: I want that gentleman—and he pointed directly at Samuel—to receive it as a gift. Everyone turned around in unison. Samuel remained motionless. For a moment, the general murmur froze. Then came the laughter, the merciless guffaws. The audience celebrated the remark as if it were a theatrical performance. The auctioneer hesitated. “Do you want to formalize that offer?” “Of course.” “100 pesos.”
“And the horse is yours!” shouted Arnaldo, raising his glass, “so our friend will have company tonight.” Samuel, from his corner, said nothing. His back remained straight, his eyes calm. He was looking at the horse, not the boy. “Sold,” the presenter finally said, tapping his wooden gavel. “And delivered to Mr. Samuel, courtesy of Mr. Arnaldo Montiel,” a groom approached with the reins in his hand.
Samuel didn’t move. The horse looked at him, or at least tried to. Its gaze was lowered, defeated, as if it no longer expected anything from anyone. And then Samuel stood up, walked slowly, silently, without looking at anyone. He took the reins with both hands, and stroked the animal’s neck with a slowness that contrasted sharply with the laughter around them. “Come on,” he whispered to the horse.
“We have nowhere to go, but we’re not alone anymore.” The commotion didn’t stop. As Samuel left the plaza with the horse, he could still hear the laughter behind him. It wasn’t ordinary laughter; it was the echo of a joke meant to be remembered. In the eyes of many, it had been the most entertaining moment of the afternoon. Arnaldo leaned back in his seat, satisfied.
Did you see the look on his face? He didn’t even protest. He took it away like he’d won a prize, he remarked, toasting with his friends. Next time we’ll give him a donkey, one of them added, and they all laughed again. But Samuel didn’t look back. His pace was slow, marked by the horse’s limp and the weariness in his own legs.
The laughter of the crowd didn’t provoke anger in him, but rather a familiar, old pang. It was the same feeling he’d had years before, when his mistakes began to close doors for him. As they drove away from the city center, the lights faded and the silence of the forgotten neighborhoods enveloped them.
They passed through alleyways where the roofs were crumbling, where the windows were covered with plastic, and scrawny dogs slept on cardboard. The horse was breathing with difficulty. Each step seemed like an effort. Samuel knew it. There was no need to examine him closely to notice the slight swelling in his joints, the cracks in his hooves, the trembling that ran through his flanks.
But there was still something in him, a tiny spark hidden amidst all the neglect. They turned down a side street until they reached a vacant lot fenced with old wire and rotten wooden posts. There, among weeds and trash, stood the fallen structure of what had once been a small stable. Samuel stopped. “You’re safe here,” he said, almost in a whisper.
He loosened the reins and began clearing debris with his hands. There wasn’t much space, but he found a corner with a still-sturdy roof. He threw down some old tarpaulins he had collected weeks before and arranged them on the ground so the horse could lie down. The animal didn’t move.
Samuel watched him for a moment, then stepped out of the enclosure, walked to a nearby container, and returned with a bucket. He filled it with water from a rusty fountain a few feet away. It wasn’t clean, but it was the best he could offer. The horse drank slowly but purposefully. Samuel sat on the ground, leaning against the dirty stable wall, watching him.
“They took advantage of you, just like they did to me, when they took everything from me,” he murmured. “I don’t blame you if you don’t trust anyone.” Night fell completely. The town still shimmered in the distance, but in that corner, the world seemed suspended. The silence was thick, broken only by the horse’s soft breath. Samuel closed his eyes for a few minutes. He wasn’t really asleep.
His mind wandered through hazy memories: his son’s small hand in his, his wife’s voice calling him from the kitchen, a stable resembling that one.
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