You were born on an island of a hundred Amazons, rowed across the strait as a baby with a bronze spearhead folded into your blanket, and your name was never said there again. Twenty-nine years later you wade ashore to their fire at night with that spearhead in your fist.

One of the hundred is your mother. You have seven days to find her, and on the seventh morning you go back on the water: to the village if one of them speaks for you, to the open sea if nobody does.

Chapters

0:00 The beach

1:38 The first morning

2:56 The colic night

4:32 Outside the wall

5:54 Hut after hut

6:51 The cost

7:25 The hush

7:59 The hut

8:53 The seventh morning

9:44 The strait

Sources

- WikiVet, "Colic Diagnosis - Abdominal Auscultation": https://en.wikivet.net/Colic_Auscultation

- Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine, Equine GI Manual (2002), "Impaction of the large colon": https://www.vetmed.auburn.edu/faculty/hanson-reid/c-13-impaction-of-the-large-colon-equine-gi-manual-2002/

- MSD Veterinary Manual, "Recognizing and Assessing Pain in Animals": https://www.msdvetmanual.com/special-pet-topics/pain-management/recognizing-and-assessing-pain-in-animals

- HQ Magazine, "Recognising hidden pain in horses": https://hqmagazine.co.za/recognising-hidden-pain-in-horses-a-shift-in-perspective/

A made-up story: the island, its law and every person in it are our own invention, and it makes no claim about the Amazons of Greek myth. The two horse facts (a silent gut is the dangerous one; a horse hides its pain) are real.

#whatif #animation #amazons

Seven days, a hundred women, and one of them is your mother. Who would you ask first?