Short Stories on Wednesdays #19 (a day late!)

Short Stories on Wednesdays is a weekly event hosted here, at Breadcrumb Reads. The purpose of this event is to encourage people to read at least one short story a week. There are no limits, of course! If you have made a post on the short stories you’ve read this week, please do leave a link in the comments section. If you haven’t made a post, it does not matter. I’d still love to know what you’ve been reading. Just put the titles down in the comments section.

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I’m sorry for this one-day delay everybody! I completely got mixed up with my days this week. I was so sure today was Wednesday, until a conversation with my husband straightened things out.

Here’s what I read last week:

“The White Horse” by Margaret Atwood
I came across this story on DailyLit and had it sent to me piece meal. I’d never read Atwood until this short story. It’s about a woman called Nelly, who owns a farm along with her boyfriend. Her friend, Billie, calls her one morning telling her she’s picked up a stray horse and wants Nelly to house her for awhile. Once the horse comes to the farm it soon dawns on Nelly that it isn’t going to be there for just “awhile”, it really is there to stay. The white horse and Nelly begin to bond in their own strange ways, and Nelly’s sister comes to visit. Now, her sister’s being there has no connection whatsoever to the white horse. The sister goes to a psychiatric doctor who declares she has schizophrenia and puts her on medication which looks like is killing her.

The story is rather simply told. I cannot say I understand why the title is “The White Horse”. Can it be that a white horse has some sort of symbolic significance? I haven’t any idea. There are two separate stories going on parallely here – that of Nelly and the horse, and Nelly and her sister. I wasn’t able to draw any connection between the two save for Nelly being the common factor.

As I’ve mentioned above, this is my first Atwood. It’s interesting to be introduced to new authors via their short story pieces. I’m not sure what I think of Atwood though. I’m not particularly eager to try anything else by her (like I was by some other short story writers I’ve been reading this year), however, I wouldn’t mind reading something else by her.

An online text of this story can be found here.

What have you folk been reading this past week?