My name is Baron Karl von Drais, and I aim to purge the horse from history.

I’ve got just the thing to do it, too.

But more on that in a moment.

First.

Horses: vile, repulsive, odorous beasts. There is no word strong enough for these devils. They foul our streets with their swamp-like waste and they toxify our already-charged atmosphere with their nasty temperaments. Horses are without virtue. A horse cannot love you. A horse cannot be tamed. A horse feels no pity when it flings you from its back.

So I shall bring the time of the horse to its end.

As I write this, the quill trembles in my hand and plops of my sweat dot this yellowed parchment. Two empty chairs sit across from me. One vacated willingly. The other unwillingly. The unwilling chair is a wooden child’s stool, with its seat removed. The seat is now outside, attached to my invention, baking in the hot German sun.

In this way, my boy will accompany me on my first ride.

In a few short moments, I will perform an inaugural journey from my home here in Mannheim to the Schwetzinger switch house. A nine-mile round trip.

I will complete this trek in mere minutes.

I will enlist the help of no odorous, dangerous beasts.

My journey will be a horseless one.

I will commit the journey on a transport of my own invention. A laufmaschine. A running machine. The English call it a draisine. I’m partial to the French term: draisienne.

My draisienne is unlike a horse in every conceivable way. My draisienne has carriage wheels for legs. My draisienne has no bones nor meat nor sinew; she is housed in a clean, wooden frame. My draisienne does not respond to prodding ankles in the ribs; her back wheel halts with the simple pull of a cord. My draisienne does not produce excrement, nor flatulence, nor snorts. My draisienne is silent as a windless night. She is cool to the touch, as willow bark in the shade. My draisienne is safe. If one were to fall from her seat, the distance would be inches, not feet. The draisienne will not continue running if she leaves a small broken body behind her on the pavement. My draisienne will slow to a stop if there is no one to propel her forward.

My draisienne will not wander. She yearns not for food nor drink nor company. My draisienne will not leave me, even should we encounter tragedy together.

My draisienne exists for one purpose.

To expedite my travel to Schwetzinger switch house.

I hear the crowd outside growing restless.

I am aware that there are those who oppose me. Old women in the town call me a scoundrel and a cur as I go to retrieve my mail. Children throw their apples at me, saying they’ll soon have extras, won’t they, if I get my way. Anonymous threats have been made against my life. I find their scrawled notes slipped under my doorframe every morning.

Man’s connection to horse is a strong one. I admit this. The bond will not be severed overnight. But severed it must be. However painful it is for us as a society, our reliance on horses cannot be sustained.

Our lives are being poisoned by these wretched creatures. Every day, our bronchi blacken further due to the fumes of their waste polluting our streets. These beasts do not care for us. They dirty our earth and disrupt our lives with their recklessness. They cast off what is most dear to us. Our children. They fracture families. They have no awareness. They have no remorse. They snort and they piss and they chomp their apple slices.

So, their time has come. If, in one hundred years’ time, the metropolises of the world are overrun with horse ghosts, my mission today will have been a success. Horse ghosts are unobtrusive and clean.

Despite knowing it is time to go, I must admit, I cannot stop my hand from shaking. My heart performs a tremolo against my sternum.

One final thought.

If I were truly confident what I was doing was a simple matter, that rendering the horse obsolete as a being would right the tragedies of my past, and set me on a course for contentment… If I were confident in this, would my brow now be as damp as it is? Would my breathing be so shallow?

Strike that.

There is no room for doubt on the narrow path of progress. There is no estate reserved for reminiscing. If uncertainty creeps in, if melancholy threatens, well.

I’ll simply push the carriage wheels beneath me to go faster.

Andrew Graham Martin’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, MoonPark Review, Post Road, SmokeLong Quarterly, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, and elsewhere. He lives in Indianapolis, Indiana.