Post by .~.T.e.a.k.~. on Mar 15, 2009 20:35:09 GMT -6
Mikey rummaged through the box furiously, tossing a few things onto the floor beside him every now and then. He sat on the floor in the living/dining room of his apartment. Two empty boxes were piled next to him and he was a little over halfway through the current box. A final box was on his blind side waiting its turn.
The small apartment was finally beginning to look not quite so bare. Michael had put together a few shelves and set them up against the walls with books, CD's, and a few random DVD's stacked inside and a few items such as a few jarfuls of pennies, dimes, and nickels and a handful of hats, belts, and several different styles of sunshades in varying shades of darkness were set scattered across the room.
But now... not he was searching for his pictures. Not pictures in albums like most people use, but the framed pictures that he'd rounded up over the years. He had quite a many, if he could just find them. To get them put up would make the small apartment feel much more like a true home. With a disgusted sigh Mikey tossed the box away, having gotten to the bottom of it and not finding anything, and turned his gaze to the very last box. It was just his luck that the photos would be in the last box he looked in.
He tore the tape off the box and opened it... Sure enough, the box was filled with the framed photographs. He grabbed a handful and looked through them, then quickly looked through the rest.
The first few pictures were of a small red and white pinto pony gelding of mixed breeding. Some of the pictures had a little boy in the shot somewhere... sometimes on the ponies back, sometimes holding the pony. Some of the photos had an older, smiling man in them too. This horse was Warpaint, the pony that Mikey had learned to ride on. Mikey was the boy in the shots, and the older man was his father.
The next photos were of a small, swaybacked, bay Quarterhorse mare. Again, some of these photographs had Mikey in them, but he was still young, about five or six at most.In a few of the pictures there was a laughing woman in the background, watching him as he trotted and cantered on the old mare... his mother. The mare's name was Nickels and Dimes, and she was the first actual horse Mikey had ever ridden.
There were only three pictures of the next horse, which was a chestnut-with-blanket Appaloosa gelding. In these photographs, Mikey looked to be closer to eight or nine and was cantering and galloping the horse across a green field.
The next picture was smaller than the others, the last picture his parents had taken together before they split up. Mikey's dad had an arm around his mums waist in the picture and both were grinning at the camera, looking very much in love. It was hard to believe that they'd finalized their divorce barely two months after the photo was taken.
The next bunch of photos showed the horse called Saturday Night Live. She was a palomino Thoroughbred that had been given to him by his mum after his parents had split and it was on her than Mikey had learned to ride english on. A few photographs were of him and the mare jumping. He looked about ten in these photos.
There was only one photo of the buckskin Quarterhorse foal 'Dun All Right' he'd taken in after moving in with his uncle when he was thirteen.
A good many pictures were of him, age fourteen, riding his uncles champion Quarterhorse Highway Man. Most of the pictures were of them cutting cattle, but a few were of them just riding in the pasture, bareback and with just a halter.
The next handful of pictures were of his cousins horses...the big grey Thoroughbred/x/Percheron named Renegade that he showed in eventing for two years and the seal brown Dutch Warmblood stallion named El Capitan that he leased and showed.
A good many pictures were of his mom and dad riding horses, some were of his cousin Karen riding her stallion and the TB/x/Perch, and a few were of his other cousins barrel racing.
There were a few photos of a very muddy truck and equally muddy people... apparently just getting back from mud-riding, and there was a photo of a tractor pulling a four-wheeler out of a creek and a few of a very nice barn and horses.
The rest of the photos were of his two current horses 'Big Bad John a.k.a Cowboy' and 'Easy Maintenance a.k.a Campbell'. A lot were of him and Cowboy... riding him, showing him, running and just hanging out, and a few were of Campbell and him. Some were of Cowboy being ridden by his dad and uncle, and a handful were of the Paint stallion running barrels and poles with his younger cousins.
Mikey grinned as he grabbed a handful of the pictures and a hammer and a few nails and stood up. Time to hang some of the photos up and set the rest out of the shelves and tables.
Now this place would finally really begin to feel like a home.
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