Bovine Bob Finally Finds His Voice
A story about how one Bovine dealt with important information when no one else was listening!
Bob watching the sunset out in the fields of The Pasture
Another day in the field, with wonderfully green tasting grass. The sun was setting in the distance. It was a glowing ball, crowned with strings of melting gold filaments as it is extinguished in the darkening pastures, just beginning to blossom in violets, maroons, and various pinks and yellows.
A sting pinched at Bovine Bob’s rear haunch, and he instinctively swatted at it with his tail and looked at his rump, the ‘food of the gods’, grass, hanging from his chewing jaw, allowing Bob to catch a glimpse of the sun as it gave up it is life to the slice of earth’s horizon.
“Hmmm. Another gorgeous day’s sun goin’ out on the earth’s unforgiving sharpness. Sliced away into all those pretty colors till the next sun makes its appearance.” Bob thought to himself. He was an average bull in his herd, and he never made much of a fuss and kept to himself in most things, as good cattle oughtta do.
He turned back to gather up the last of the days’ vittles before he headed back to bed down with the rest of the herd in clumps for the night. As he lowered his head to a particularly colorful patch blade that was under another member of herd’s ol’ chewed up and discarded eatin’s, he noticed something popping out of it. It looked like some shrooms that often dot the field after a moist evening or morning. An awful lot of em, in fact, but Bob didn’t mind. They usually just added a nice flavor to the vittles he was eating, even though they could be right bitter-tasting every once in a while.
These were not. These mushrooms made the grasses they were laying on taste wonderful! He pondered this as he turned and made his way back to the herd’s sleepin’ place, which would be getting reasonably dark once he made it there.
By the time he was about to plop down on his favorite spot, Bob was beginning to see a ‘spectrum’ of colors. “Spectrum? What’s that word doin’ in my head? And how do I know what it means? Whoa!” and that last thought echoed and shivered itself into layers of free associatin thoughts beyond the usual ‘moo’ we all know and love. He began dancing through the blinking things in the dark skies above, jumping clean over the moon while doing so. He turned into a lady singing on stage by the name of “J-Lo”. He was, for a time, a fly sitting on his rump, extremely hot and annoyed at something for what seemed like an age. He got deep, realizing something he hadn’t ever thought of before. He was A cow! He felt like doing something like, uh, laughing or something? He didn’t know how to describe what he had never experienced before. He also felt despondent, and above it all, he was hungry for a hamburger, whatever that was supposed to be, food maybe? Whatever it was, he somehow knew it to be delicious! His thoughts were bumping into each other as they turned into the herd of his youth when he was just a calf, before his Ma and Pa had taken the Journey with the Handlers to join the Big Herd in the Big Field.
This memory was much more vibrant than anytime he ever thought about those days that had gone before, echoing sounds crisscrossing before his nose, ticklin’ a bit, then becoming visible themselves before him. He again watched the Handlers’ “Hiya,” and “There! There! That’a’way!,” his Ma and Pa into the boxes to take em to join the Big Herd. Except this time, he popped out of his calf self and into his Ma’s head!
The slide-box they were in had slits which Ma could see out of. But moo, it was a bit crowded and uncomfortable. An interminable amount of time passed, and Ma, Pa, and the others were trying to get a hold of the Handlers to let them know of their discomfort. Sometimes it just seemed like tha’ Handlers could hear, but were ignorin’ em on purpose. The movement of the box was making a couple of Ma’s stomachs woo-hoo-zy!
The box stopped jostling, then opened, and the Handlers were “Come on y’all, Hiya!” and “Here, Here” -ing them. Suddenly Bob’s view shifted, and he was in Pa’s head now. Ma had just entered a larger box ahead of Pa, and Pa could see movement out inside of it. Pa was dreadfully confused as to where they were all at. Where he and the others were at didn’t look like a large pasture at all! Pa was getting very anxious and crowded in by the others. Some of them were trying to ask the Handlers questions directly, but they didn’t seem to notice or respond. Pa had just made it through the opening of the large box and could make out, “no, that didn’t make sense. What would cattle be doing with their hooves in the air?”
“What were those horrible cries from the ones ahead?” Pa thought, then Pa got an honest good look at the one’s ahead, and Pa’s mind just went white with fear, confusion, and horror!
Bob was a-mooing all night, right bothering all the cattle near him. Some had to move away to have any hope of sleep whatsoever. Whatever Bob was a dreamin’, it was unusual, those who were near him commented to each other, and that was sure as milkin in the morning for the Milk Cows!
Bob woke with his head feeling like he had licked far too much salt the day before. Like he had been kicked hard in the head by ‘nother member of the herd. It took him a while to get his legs under himself to stand, and his legs were shaky. One of the Handlers took notice of Bob’s trouble getting up and was beginning to come over to him, a thing that would typically have been a welcome thing to occur, but this time, Bob shivered from the top of the dome of his head down to the start of his tail. He also started moving quickly to stall the Handler, placing a hand on him. He half walked; half ran to join the others.
When he had caught up and finally fallen into a regular gait, he settled into the relaxing walk into the fields that was a nice routine he could easily allow himself to relax into. He began to listen to the usual morning chatter that was a staple of the herd, making it out to the fields for the day.
“Francine said she heard Betsy tell Georgine that she had heard Marla say she had overheard, the Rancher’s daughter says we were going to be taken to the Big Field to join the Big Herd at the end of this week!” said Claudette matter — of-factly.
Bob’s limbs stiffened, and after a moment, he found himself compelled to speak up.
“We shouldn’t get in the Boxes then!” he had more than spoken up. He had darn near shouted it out. “The Handlers are going to take us to another, larger Box, where they are going to,” Bob shuddered. He couldn’t help it, then he continued, “they, they are, are going to KILL US and the Ranchers will EAT US!”
His statement echoed over the herd, making his head hurt even more. It felt like he was get...
