©Jason I. Stutz 2019
A cowboy lives in the deserts of South Argentina, riding a donkey to a horse someone promised him but will never deliver. El Estupido, riding all the way. Through thirst and snow and rain, he rides all day, day after day after day.
El Estupido- his mother cares so much: “Why doesn’t he come home?”
El Estupido, riding through the desert, his donkey’s legs like rubber, step, step, step, sweating, groaning, tears from its donkey eyes flowing. “Onward!” El Estupido’s eyes are steely, determined. “I will get what is promised to me!”
“I prove myself on this journey and will deserve my promised horse. Through thirst and snow and rain, my courage builds.” El Estupido, his bravery has no mind.
Onward he goes through towns and villages to meet his promised reward. He knows no pain; the saddle does not crush his testicles as they would a normal man. They lift him up as on a balloon. He rides balanced on his balloon balls on the back of the donkey who bays, cries, groans each step below him, through the sand hills of Southern Argentinian desert.
“Donkey, why do you continue to serve El Estupido in this way?” you ask. “All the world cringes to feel your pain!” The donkey turns his face to you:
“Me encanta.” And he returns his face to his merciless, excruciating labor, step, step, his hooves groaning atop the Earth.
El Estupido, riding through the desert on his exhausted donkey, who cries each time his hooves press into the sand. El Estupido is so estupido that he once met a man who frightened him by the claim that he had stolen Estupido’s penis and replaced it with his own. El Estupido lay in fright for nights without end, aspiring for his penis to return. “His is large, for sure,” he cried, “but full of evil!”
The donkey cries, only a small moan when he can’t stand the pain. “Stupid donkey! Do you not know, my promised horse is still 170 miles yonder, and you have only ridden me 12?” He scoffs, “I know better than you, how to ride a donkey! So do as I say!”
And the donkey’s heart surges forward, El Estupido riding high upon him, “Me encanta,” says the donkey, as his tender hooves gently crush the sand. “M-e enca-a-nt-a-a.”
El Estupido, riding all the way, through thirst and heat of day, the desert glowing hot beneath his pitiful donkey’s tender hooves! The donkey turns his face to you, the reader, tears streaming down his donkey face, opens his mouth as if to speak an existential word, but all his air is choked in his lungs and he can only bay, “M-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!” M-e-e-e-e-e!” His head returns to the dust, he pushes his legs onward with his merciless will.
Slowly, the heat shines from the sun upon the two, but a gentle breeze cools their faces. El Estupido and his faithful donkey feel their aches and pains depart as on angel’s wings. Suddenly, they ride and feel at one. El Estupido strokes the donkey’s main. It feels good. He wants to hug the donkey and thank him, but it makes his balloon balls shrink to even think about that, and the results of such a deflation occur to El Estupido as catastrophic. The donkey turns his face back upward to El Estupido as though ready to receive his love at last, but El Estupido’s face, by now, is like a stone grin chiseled by inferior artisans. The donkey’s heart breaks (for the hundredth time this morning- “I still have at least a million muscle fibers in my heart more,” thinks the donkey, optimistically), and returns to his passionate surge forward upon the excruciating sand. “Me encanta,” his voice breaks, as yet another muscle fiber in his heart snaps.
“Buenisimo, burro,” chides El Estupido. “I will achieve my promised horse,” he grins, his balloon balls re-inflating from the air they had lost.
En fin, the journey complete, the donkey’s heart urging him onward, he falls, gasps, bays a terrible cry! Dust lifts around him like a cloud of infinitesimal angels, his tongue wags to the dirt. “Gaaaaaaaaah!” he croaks. El Estupido steps off from him as from a broken cart he kicks behind him.
“My horse,” El Estupido spits, his sweat soaking his fancy shirt. “My promised horse!” He kicks his heels together and salutes the woman he greets.
She doesn’t have any horse.
“N-no horse…” says El Estupido, as his donkey coughs blood from his lung upon his white and lace boots.
She is incredulous, “I was joking.”
El Estupido turns his heart from himself.
“Alright, donkey, no time for laziness- we have only to begin our journey home.”
Stutz's Fairy Tales and Poems 