My Husband Watches Henry the Donkey

by Debra A Daniel

When the news is overwhelming, my husband turns to Youtube. “Here comes Henry,” he says. Henry’s owner brings treats and the donkey prances to the fence, braying and showing his toothy glee.

My husband smiles. “There are too many bad asses in this world,” he says. “We need more like Henry”

These days we’re losing sleep. Losing friends. Blocking them on Facebook. Avoiding neighbors with unwelcoming posters in their yards. The list of businesses we’re boycotting grows daily. My husband’s blood pressure is problematic. Mine, too. Our hearts as well. It’s tough to be healthy when the world makes us sick. At night we listen to yoga music or British podcasts because their accents soothe like a lullaby. There’ve been days when we moped and brooded and even answered, yes, to doctor’s office questionnaires about depression and sadness.

Then my husband found Henry, with his ridiculous grin, his jubilation over something as simple as an apple or a carrot or a Twizzler. On particularly disheartening news days, he binges on Henry. It doesn’t matter if he’s seen the video before, he still finds relief in the joyful little guy.

“Look at him,” my husband says. “He’s glad to be alive.”

“He’s not worried about the end of the world as we know it,” I say.

“Don’t say that in front of Henry,” my husband says. He chuckles “We don’t want to upset him.”

We sit at the kitchen table making signs for the weekend protest. Bright markers. Huge letters, Catchy puns. Pointed barbs. In the background, the iPad plays Youtube. Over and over, we pause from our dire musings to take comfort from Henry’s simple life in a pasture green and pleasant.

About the Author

Debra A. Daniel, is the author of three novellas-in-flash, A Family of Great Falls The Roster (Ad Hoc Fiction), and In the Dark Eyes of the Rabbit (Ad Hoc Fiction) which won the Bath Novella in Flash Award in 2025. She is also the author of the novel Woman Commits Suicide in Dishwasher (Muddy Ford Press) and poetry chapbooks, The Downward Turn of August (Finishing Line Press) and As Is (Main Street Rag). She won the Fractured Lit Work/Play Challenge and was third place in Flash Fiction Magazine. She’s been nominated for Pushcart and Best Short Fictions, has been long listed and shortlisted in many competitions, and has won The Los Angeles Review short fiction prize. She was twice named SC Arts Commission Poetry Fellow, won the Guy Owen Poetry Prize, as well as numerous awards from the Poetry Society of SC. Work has appeared in journals and anthologies including: With One Eye on the Cows, Things Left and Found by the Side of the Road, The Los Angeles Review, Fall Lines, Smokelong Quarterly, Kakalak, Emrys Journal, Pequin, Inkwell, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River, Gargoyle.She is retired from a career in teaching, now sings in a band with her husband, and was once on ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.’