Ted
Once upon a time, quite far away but not so very long ago there lived a very small pony called Ted. In many ways Ted was just like other very small ponies. He had four hooves and large ears that looked like wizard’s hats and he brayed at the flies for being so needy and played darts every other week. But in another way he was quite quite different. Ordinary very small ponies, you see, only have around 4 thoughts an hour. But our Ted had a 100, then 200, then 400, then 600, then 800, and now – at last count – Ted was having 1300 thoughts an hour. Which is a lot of thoughts for a massive horse, let alone a very small pony. From time to time Ted feels like the thoughts are upon him and happening to him like rotten fruit pummelling a bad child in the stocks:
‘I look like I’ve got glue in my fur.’
‘That man is feeding the other horses instead of me because he thinks I am fat’
‘I like it when my udders shake in the breeze’
‘I wonder if I would enjoy murdering. I could easily tread on this field mouse full force’
‘I pretend to give to charity and watch the news but really just love crisps and millionaire matchmaker’
‘I have no heart. Just a dead bat stapled to the back of my lung’
And so on. 1300 times an hour. And Ted isn’t the only very small pony in his family to have been so beset and besieged and befuddled by a spinning top head. His mum, Daphne, was exactly the same. Ted didn’t have a Dad anymore because he had run off with a Shetland from two fields over. But he had a Daphne. But Daphne had a busy head. So she decided to combat her brain with physical activity and art. So when the thoughts got really bad Daphne would find a giant piece of paper and attach Crayola pens in the grooves of her hooves and walk rapidly in circles like a pony etch-a-sketch. And all the while she paced and drew she kept thoughts tucked down, way down in the back of the brain, tidyily wedged in the fold at the back of her neck bits. And Daphne sold her drawings for vast sums to people like Gary Barlow and Angela Merkel. But one day Daphne looked up from her circles and saw she had completely worn away her hooves and three quarters of each leg. ‘Shit’ thought Daphne. ‘That’s a problem’. So she resolved to stop pacing. But the moment she did:
‘I stink of oniony sweat’
‘I have never read any Dickens’
‘I am bland like soup, I should just do everyone a favour and throw myself in the lake’
…and so she began to trudge again. Onwards. Round and round. And the thoughts got quieter and quieter until they were nothing more than tiny whispers, like the ruffle of fingers undoing cotton buttons on a clean white shirt.
After a while Daphne was, of course, legless and marooned. Unable to heave herself in her circles she resigned herself and sat and waited. Instantly the thoughts scuttled back across her like a bag of ants, scattering about. And slowly but surely these busy ants trampled our Daphne to death with their tiny, relentless, drumming feet. And the last words that anyone ever heard Daphne say was:
‘I can’t hear you. Why aren’t you listening?’
So our Ted resolved to do the opposite to our Daphne. ‘I won’t grind myself down’ he said. ‘I will find peace in the still’ he thought. And so, right now our Ted is sat high up on Brandon Hill static and quiet, observing his thoughts like passing traffic and feeling the distribution of his weight on the floor. He is so still and quiet that if you didn’t know he was there you might just walk straight past this very small pony waiting in the grass without some much as a backward glance. But he’s there; he’s been there for years. Diligently listening and waiting for the voices to stop and the answer to come.
