Story Two, 5 July

(Here, we were supposed to take the first assignment (set in Paris), and make it take place in New York. I did something a little different.)

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The Butchered

Before there was memory, there was instinct. You emerge, blink twice at the circle shining in the pale sky, so close you might lift your nose to the heavens and smell it. You have always known that it was really only the ground underneath you that was moving. Sunrise is your favorite time of day, sunrise makes the fields drip with water, and the wet feels cool on your legs, like your mother's tongue. You seek the tenderest patches of grass while the ground you stand on moves, tilts. The sun's angle shifts like it was blown by the wind. Straight above you, it sucks moisture from the grass and makes the blades warm with light. You seek shade under a crooked tree. The others join you so you can sweat together: black hides and black fur, nostrils flare, nostrils snort, hooves kick at dirt, tails flick at the biting flies, teeth clip grass and tongues twist to guide the clumps towards the back molars, bulging eyes wide, alert. You know them all, your herd. There's that one, with the twisted ear, and that one, with the white spot on his chest, or that one, who often smells of his own shit. Those ones over there have found better shade under another tree, so you follow slowly, along with the rest of the herd, playing sentinel to the grass along the way.

Time passes because that is the way it has been and will always be. Existence moves in one direction only. Your body grows because this is the logical course of things. The idea of nations and borders does not exist, so you do not know that you are in a place which some call Texas, on a wide spread of land, with a trailer parked on it. You have a hole in your ear, with a numbered piece of plastic strung through it; but 247 is as arbitrary as the clouds, and you are you regardless of how anyone else identifies you. The fences that cage you are arbitrary as well, and the only reason you don't stray past them is because they block your way. You know that it was not always like this, but for you there has never been anything else.

You do not dream of being anything else; you are always a cow. Sometimes, you dream of grass that tastes sweeter than any grass you've ever had, sometimes you see humans as giants above you, and sometimes you dream of the fences disappearing and fields that go on forever. You do not dream of having wings, of taking flight, of climbing trees, or of burrowing underground.

You sleep with the herd at night, their legs tucked under their black barrel bodies under the black sky with shining flecks of flight. The ground does not stop spinning when you sleep. Some days it is so hot you feel your mouth begin to foam and your tongue to swell, and the water in the trough is gone too quickly, so you find shade and everyone tries not to touch, waiting for the earth to spin out of reach of the some so that it will be cool again. Some days it is so cold you huddle with the herd for warmth and every breath comes in little smoky puffs like a morning fog over the fields. Some days there are blackbirds that come to peck at the grass grains. Some days it rains and your hot hide seems to hiss with release. Some days one of the herd lies down in the grass and doesn't get up so the humans have to come with their ropes and haul the carcass away.

One day that should have been like any other day, there are men with sticks who hit you until you walk through a narrow passageway, nose to tail with the herd, squished into darkness. You huddle together as if it were cold, but it is hot, hotter than ever before. You see nothing but empty black, smell fear in the sweat of those pressed up against you. You begin to wonder if you really are a cow or if you were instead born as a blade of grass and you are now in someone's belly. The others begin to low softly, but soon there is a roar louder than all the herd, and the earth is moving too fast and you are being jostled against those around you and you lose control of your senses. There is only hot, sickening fear that pulls at your insides and makes you feel like you're falling into the black that surrounds you.

When the world stops shaking and there is light, you follow the herd away from the endless, starless darkness. But this is not the field, this is another narrow passageway, the only path to follow. The scent of fear grows stronger, and the nervous moans pervade and echo in the tight space as you walk, each one of the herd with dignity, one hoof at a time, at their leisure, climbing the ramp. You begin to hear death-cries ahead, and you wonder what could be happening, because this has never happened before. Never so many dying all at once. The space is so small you can't turn around. Your nervousness urges you to move forward. Before you understand, the cow in front of you is flying through the air, and now you imagine that you all might have been birds, that being a cow was the dream. You, too, are forced into the air, with a pinch at your legs, and your head hangs. You see motions before your eyes but the world is moving strangely. A jolt, a sudden pain, worse than the biting flies, worse than the hot sun or the cold wind. You can't move, but you are conscious. A soft moan from deep in your throat, like a question. When they slice your throat, you do feel it, you see the red spurting in time with the throb of your body. You blink twice at the circle shining in the pale sky. As your memory fades and tells you that you are nothing but a cow, that cow is all you could have ever been, your instinct remains, reminding you that maybe you were a blackbird, a blade of grass, or even the earth itself.