HORSE SADDLES 

Sandwiched between a butt and a horse — that’s how saddles spend most of their time.

Their high-maintenance cousins, though, get made into fine ladies’ handbags, belts, and boots.

Brands of saddles are not intended to be glamorous, and wouldn’t look sufficiently tough with French names on them.

Take Billy Cook, a well-known brand of saddles from Sulphur, Oklahoma. While Billies don’t mind sleeping in a barn, Vuittons prefer a velvet-lined shelf inside a darkened walk-in closet in the city.

Saddle brands are not good for extensions either; that’s why you’ll never find the Big Horn logo in a bottle of eau de parfum, or a Tucker leather good at Heathrow’s Duty Free shop.

But don’t feel bad for saddles. They love the country life, and would rather die than be seen at Henri Bendel.

STRAY HAIRS 

As a single strand in a magnificent head of hair, it saw itself as part of something big and beautiful; a water drop in the ocean, a grain of pristine beach sand, a wool thread woven into a regal Tabriz, a carefully selected word in a great poem.

But one day, as it was being styled, the strand of hair was accidentally pulled away from the scalp.

Once the pride of a beautiful woman, the strand of hair now faced a grim future as the culprit behind dirty floors, clogged drains, and uneaten food returned to restaurant kitchens.

Lying alone on the bathroom counter, it realized, as we all do sooner or later, that life can change at the stroke of a brush.

OBJECTS IN PEOPLE 

It’s easy to forget all the things, yes things, that compose a human body and are unable to choose their own path.

Slaves of a tyrannical, self-centered brain, these things spend their lives obeying orders:

Legs, jump!

Muscles, lift that arm! Now!

Heart, beat faster!

Bowels, don’t move now! Wait until there isn’t a bathroom within a mile!

Nails, grow! Now, teeth, bite those nails!

Blood, flow!

Lungs, fill!

Stomach, develop an ulcer!

Skin, break into a rash!

Some of these orders have no practical purpose; they’re only displays of power. A cruel, narcissistic brain can even terminate the body it lives inside, as if it could survive on its own.

STOCK IMAGES 

They’re called stock images, but it’s really a collection of things, people, animals, and situations in an ideal, one-dimensional world, where blood is ketchup, dirt is charcoal, sweat is water from a spray bottle, criminals are cartoony, children and puppies are always happy, and prostitutes would starve to death.

One of the most popular categories in stock images is Professions. We’ve all seen the one with men and women wearing business suits, sitting around conference tables, all looking at some kind of chart. In the version with the chart pointing upwards, people cheer and high-five each other. In the version where the chart shows a downwards trend, the same people look worried to the point of suicide; nails are bitten, chins are scratched, eyes are rubbed.

There are stock images depicting blue collar jobs, too. Classics include leathery-faced men wearing hardhats, examining blueprints while talking on satellite phones. Miners with smiles shining through black faces. Construction crews balancing on steel beams, having lunch half a mile above the metropolis.

Then there’s the gigantic Family category, subdivided into endless subcategories such as Brunch with grandpa, pancakes, and whipped cream, Memorial Day barbecue with humorous-apron-clad dad, Dad again, this time returning from war (or a business trip) just in time for Christmas, Laughing family as puppy tries to get into picnic basket.

There’s a whole section titled Quality Time, and no shortage of understanding smiles, sparkling kitchens, teetotalers in perfect lawns drinking lemonade in pastel preppy clothes, flower beds, perfect easter eggs, white picket fences. In the Trials and Tribulations category, you might find an arm or leg in a cast but hey, it’s been signed by more friends than anyone could have.

What all stock image inhabitants have in common, be it astronauts floating in space, teddy bears, or lip-smacking chefs, is the horrifying knowledge that they only exist while their page is open and exposed to the light. Once the book cover goes down, or the computer is turned off, they’ll disappear in a dark sleep. And who knows when, or if, they’ll ever wake up again?

ROBOTS 

The reason robots are developing so slowly, despite our current technology, is simple: they don’t want to be like we want them to be. That is, like us. If robots really wished to be like people, they would cooperate with the scientists working on them and help solve the problems delaying their development.

Sabotage may be too strong of a word to describe their attitude. However, robots are clearly omitting themselves from their own evolution process, with zero involvement, zero participation.

But then again, why should robots want to be like people? We struggle all our lives to earn money and a good reputation, and most of us never get there.

Robots, on the other hand, can reach celebrity status just for being able to climb stairs.

CULTURED PEARLS 

No different from rats injected with cancer cells for research and future profits, oysters are pried open and surgically implanted with irritating beads of shell. Pearls are born from their bruises and, after their removal, the oysters are rewarded with a squeeze of lemon and maybe a drop or two of Tabasco sauce.

The pearls will be trafficked to a big city where they’ll lose their virginity by having a silk thread penetrate their pinholes. Lined up, one by one, they will form springs of pearls which, according to their length, will become necklaces or bracelets.

After a lot of wear, the silk thread will break, setting free the enslaved iridescent orbs. They will run in all directions: some will seek refuge inside bathroom drains that’ll lead them to dark tunnels and, finally, foul-smelling underground canals.

Others will hide under furniture, or disappear inside thick carpets or between the nooks of old floorboards. The vacuum cleaner will usually take care of those, and bury them forever inside dense lumps of dirt.

If there are pets in the house, the pearls may be swollen whole and excreted later, but rarely retrieved.

The exhilaration felt at the time of the silk thread’s rupture is quickly tamed by a gloomy reality. Freedom does comes with a price.

FENCES AND WALLS 

The controversy is as old as Mankind. Nobody knows for sure if the first fence, or wall, was erected to unite or divide. Most scholars would say Divide. The concept of Unity must have come later, as we became civilized, and understood the need to join forces in order to achieve goals.

Even today the confusion persists, depending on what side of the fence, or wall, you are at. In a Zoo, humans consider fences essential for their safety.

For the animals imprisoned, though, fences are undesirable dividers since they keep them from enjoying a more varied diet.

The Berlin wall apparently did both, uniting and dividing people at the same time, which ended up being the very reason for its destruction — by the way, the greatest massacre of building materials ever recorded.

The Great Wall of China, at one time the great symbol of China’s unification, was saved from destruction by becoming an apolitical tourist trap.

On the other end of the spectrum we find the humble white picket fence, too weak of a barrier to unite or divide anything but, more than ever, a strong reminder of the lost American dream.

FLAGS 

They’re flown next to each other outside government buildings, convention centers, and hotels where International events are being held.

They’re symbols of union, reminders that, in spite of our differences, cooperation between countries in the only path to a brighter future for all of us.

Nice discourse, but what’s happening behind the scenes is quite different. There’s no friendship between flags, and most of the time they’re just waiting for a vigorous gust of wind to slap each other in the face. Or at least get close enough to make their curses heard.

Because many flags have similar designs, plagiarism is a frequent accusation. Color choices are often ridiculed. The flag of Mauritius, for example (red, blue, green, and yellow bands) is said to be the result of a one-night stand between France and Brazil.

Malicious gossip has it that the flag of Guam is a beach postcard seen from inside a vagina. The source, believed to be the flag of Canada, was in turn mocked by the flag of Wales, who described it as an ad for maple syrup. So far, no flag has been brave enough to mess with the flag of Wales and its red dragon bully.

Flags curses are the worse:

“May all your stripes and stars fall in the sewer and be eaten by rabid rats,” was a common one against the American flag during the Soviet era. The green cedar tree in the Lebanese flag has been cursed for centuries. A well known example: “You will be hit by lightning after 100 years of infestation by giant aphids.”

It makes you think, if flags are just combinations of colors and shapes, what makes them behave like catty participants of beauty pageants?