A horse is not a horse. Obviously. It is, however, delicious. I used to buy horse meat in a butcher shop in Italy without knowing it until one day I looked up at an opened-mouth head that dripped blood and stared dead. Lean and red. Delicious and horrifying. As seen on TV, infomercial and Godfather. A horse. Is big. I fell off once while riding and landed right under it. Horses look nothing like horses from beneath—monstrous assortment: enormous belly, sharp teetering head, and legs like hammers, pounding and crashing around me. A horse is strong and fragile, like seashells and eggshells and mine shells. September 10, 2003, Boyacá, Colombia: A ticking horse walks into a town square on a Wednesday, on a Wednesday my birthday—September 10—saddled with a bomb. Eight dead. Everything, anything, burns. Everything-anything can be made to tick, explode. But not alone, not on its own. Not a horse. A horse is not a bomb, is not a shell, is not a meal, is not a symbol—is not a horse. Is not touching the ground at all in full gallop.