EPISODE 12 – RIDE BOYS RIDE
- Enzo
- Feb 15
- 6 min read
SONG
SONG LYRICS
I rode a black horse on a shingle beach
Giorgio behind me—so close I felt his heat
Water to my left, hoofbeats in my ears
We galloped together, and I felt no fear
The whole sweet moment snapped off its hinge
Diesel split the romance with an iron scream
A black car on the beach, something's wrong
And my fast horse snorts hard, loses its song
Ride, ride for your life, ride, ride boys ride
This love rides so close, close to the knife
No faces, No eyes, in the mirror-glass, ride
This love is denied any chance, ride boys ride
Aah aah aaah, aah aah aaah
His chest on my bare back, no space
Hold the reins, hold me, keep our pace
So warm behind me, not quite here
My heartbeat climbs, don't disappear
The horse hits the water and my balance slides
A wave comes up like a hand from the tides
Salt floods my mouth, the whole world turns blind
And cold is the last thing that I find
Ride, ride for your life, ride boys, boys ride
This love rides so close, close to the knife
No faces, No eyes, in the mirror-glass, ride
This love is denied any chance, ride boys ride
I jerk awake, choking, sweat on my brow
And that engine outside keeps growling now
Aah aah aaah, boys ride
STORY
I was galloping on a black horse, and the beach was empty. No fisherman, no boat, no footprints in the fine gravel. Only that endless line between water and land, almost silver in the first light of dawn.
The horse beneath me was warm and alive, a single powerful being made of muscle and breath. I felt his back working, the elastic rise and fall that carried me as if I were part of him. Every leap drove through my body, yet none of it hurt. It was not the hard riding that shakes you apart. It was flowing, rhythmic, like a song you do not hear but feel inside your chest.
The hooves struck the gravel, spraying it behind us in fine dark drops. Salt hung in the air, heavy and pure, mixed with the smell of algae and the cool breath of the sea. The wind came off the water and brushed my face.
Giorgio was behind me. I did not see him. I felt him against my bare back, as if his body were a second warm layer of skin over mine. The heat of his chest settling against me with every breath. The quiet weight of his presence, not pushing, not pulling, simply holding.
His arms were around me. I felt protected, at ease in the warmth of him. I saw only his hands, holding mine and the reins. They held everything the way he held everything: calm, certain, without haste.
His breath was at my ear. Warm. Even. So close I felt his lips would soon nibble my earlobe.
I felt sheltered. As if wrapped in a blanket not made of cloth, but of a person.
Not through words.
Not through promises.
Through that simple knowledge of the body: behind me is someone stronger. Someone who carries me without saying so.
The horse galloped, and the beach flew past. Sea to the left, dunes to the right, everything soft. Even the light was soft. It was that hour when the world has not yet decided which colors it will wear. The sky pale pink, the horizon a thin dark line.
I did not have to speak.
I did not have to explain.
I only had to sit, breathe, feel.
And I thought, this must be what paradise is. Not in apples, not in words, but in closeness that does not ask whether it is allowed. In a body behind me that holds me without judgment. In a warmth so complete that even fear grows quieter.
The gallop became faster.
Or perhaps it was only my heart.
And right there, in the middle of that soft, romantic stillness, the sound arrived.
An engine.
Deep. Foreign. Wrong on the beach.
At first it was only a murmur, like an animal far away. Then it grew louder, closer, metallic. The air began to vibrate differently, and the horse beneath me tensed, as if it had understood the danger before I did.
I looked to the right.
Beside us, where no car should have been, a black automobile was driving.
Smooth. Dark. Without dust. As if it had not come along the shore but had simply appeared.
It kept no distance. It moved with us, as if it had been looking for us. As if it had known we would be here.
The sound of its engine swallowed the rhythm of the hooves. The wind, which moments ago had smelled of salt, now reeked of oil and hot metal. I felt Giorgio change behind me. Not visible, but there in the tension of his hands. His warmth remained, yet it was no longer only protection. It was readiness.
I turned my head again toward the car, and the look into its windows was like a stab.
I saw no one.
No faces. No eyes.
Only reflection.
In the dark glass I saw myself, Enzo, on the horse, and behind me Giorgio as shadow and body, close, large, against my back. But the reflection was not calm. It was distorted, trembling, panicked, as if the glass returned not only light but fear.
I could barely breathe.
The car drew closer. So close I thought its paint would graze my skin. It did not merely drive beside us. It pressed. It played with the distance. It took it from me centimeter by centimeter, as if testing how quickly we would break.
The horse snorted, the gallop turned uneven. The beach, endless a moment ago, now felt like a corridor tightening.
The car pulled ahead a little.
It wanted to cut us off.
I felt Giorgio’s breath quicken at my ear. His hands tugged the reins slightly to the left.
Closer to the water.
The wet gravel grew heavy, the hooves slipped for a beat, stones rolling beneath the iron. The sea was no longer beautiful. It was an edge, a risk. But it was the only space the car allowed us.
We galloped along the waterline, so close the waves cooled our legs. The car followed. Impossible, absurd, yet there.
I looked into the window again.
Again only reflection. And in it I saw something that terrified me: I was riding alone, though I could still feel Giorgio.
“Don’t leave me alone. Don’t disappear,” I shouted.
I looked forward.
And then, from the other side, from the sea, as if the water itself had decided against us, a wave came.
Not an ordinary wave. Not one that breaks softly and retreats. A wall. A dark, heavy mass rising suddenly, as if the sea had been given a body.
I heard the roar too late.
The horse slipped.
Just a moment. One wrong step on the rolling wet gravel.
The car came even closer, as if it needed exactly that moment to seize us.
The wave hit me.
Cold as a blow.
Heavy as a hand dragging you down.
Water filled my mouth and nose. Salt burned.
My eyes flew open, and I saw my bare feet in a bed.
It took a moment to understand that I had only been dreaming. That I had slept in my grandparents’ house.
My body was wet with sweat. I was sitting upright, hands clenched in the blanket as if I still held the reins. My heart was racing.
The room was already bright. Not the harsh light of day, but that early cautious light that has not yet decided whether it will be warm or cold. It lay like a thin veil over everything, softening edges, and yet all felt sharper than usual.
The air in the bedroom smelled of old linen, of dust, of my grandmother Angela’s soap, which should no longer have existed and yet was there, somewhere in the cracks. A scent that sounds like home when you are small, and like loss when you return.
I lowered my gaze.
There it was.
My grandfather’s old washed-out sock.
A piece of fabric that yesterday had been only a sock, and today lay like a confession. Silent. Shameless. Full of what no one was meant to see. A mute witness to my pressure, my hunger, my desperation, which during the night had searched for an exit because otherwise it would have hurt.
I ran a hand over my face, as if I could wipe the feeling of that nightmare from my skin.
And then I heard it again. That engine sound. No longer in the dream. From outside. Deep. Heavy. Slow.
