It looks like a small house, but is more like a utility shed stands sentinel at the edge of the parking lot. Looks like a pre fab shed from Home Depot, but you can tell this was built by someone’s hands so more like a small hut. Or an ice fishing shanty. The place inside is just big enough for a stool, a chunk of a pressure treated 2 x 8 that has been rounded at the corner and laminated with packing tape juts out as a ledge that serves as a desk behind the plexiglass partition. Not much else in there—a traffic cone under the ledge, a clock radio usually on a talk station, a hotpot, a calendar from the lumber yard, a punch clock and tickets for the rare non permit holder.

Most people who park in this lot have a permit, so either the attendant waves them in, or sometimes there is no attendant, just the shack and a sign that says “permit parking only, please.” Except Sundays, which are free but besides the church people, the lot is empty on Sundays and the shack has its door closed.

At night, when most of the cars are gone, a man drives up in a green van and parks right by the hut. He opens the door to the hut with a key and turns on the light in the little building. He is usually wearing a brown velvet tuxedo.

When he opens the door, he is carrying the stool that is kept by the ledge inside. Puts that down.
Stands on it and whistles.

One little horse, a Falabella, not much bigger than a big dog comes out of the van He whistles again and another little horse comes out. Then another. And another. Then there are 12 little horses standing in a circle facing the man who is now standing on the stool. He holds his left hand up, extends his pointer finger and makes a circle motion above his head and all the horses make a full circle, this time nose to tail. The man whistles again and the horses start walking in concentric circles that get smaller and smaller until the innermost horse has to step up on top of the horse immediately in front of him.

This continues until the horses have formed a tower, one on top of the other. When the man in the tuxedo steps down from his stool, the top horse jumps down and walks back into the van, followed by the next and the next. Then the light goes off.

This happens every night.