Douglas Watson is the author of The Era of Not Quite and A Moody Fellow Finds Love and Then Dies. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, One Story, McSweeney’s, and other publications.
But by the time the twenty-seventh rainbow unfurled itself across the heavens, the protozoa didn’t even look up from their work. Didn’t the world have anything new to offer?
One day in Holland a new animal was invented. It was a miniature racehorse with a jet-black coat and, supposedly, a docile nature—the perfect horse for children to ride. Watching it gambol about the laboratory for the first time, Van…