Marco's Adventure

Marco

Marco looked behind at the big old barn as the truck slowly rattled away from the farm. If it were possible, he reckoned he would have cried tears like a human but it wasn’t. He was a bull, not a fighting bull, though he could give a good fight if the situation called it. But bulls don’t cry. The good big balls were sold first after the owner of the farm Mr Summergail dropped dead almost two years ago after a most unfortunate encounter with a piece of chocolate cake. As he liked to be called, one thing could be said about Mr Gail, he would not be greatly missed by anyone, especially after the way he ran his farm and his household. But that was two years ago. His wife whom he hadn’t allowed much freedom had no idea what to do with a farm this size and he would like to think she did her best.

Marco didn’t know the details but everything had gone south after Gail choked on that piece of chocolate candy. Who would have thunk it, he thought as the farm move farther away With each jarring bounce of the truck, that the big and burly Gail would be done by one of his favourite snacks on an innocent Sunday morning?

Marco was among the last barge of livestock that was sold off to whoever could afford it. In the truck with him was a few goats and sheep he didn’t know because they didn’t float together, one big pig called Ebony because she was black in colour and another white pig called Bacon. He got the name because Mr Gail had bought him to be slaughtered for consumption at his daughter’s wedding. Seeing as bacon was still alive, one could guess the wedding didn’t take place. Marco had heard from farmhands gossiping as usual what had happened to the wedding preparations. They had said the break-up was because of some suspiciously wrapped package in a brown paper that had arrived at Emma’s house in Charlottetown. Emma, Gail’s daughter, wouldn’t really tell anybody what was in the package but it had been enough to call off the wedding and save Bacon’s life.

Also in the truck was Mariayaya, a big cow who has given birth to countless numbers of children and who insisted that she was an Italian cow, how she arrived at that conclusion, Marco would never know. Right now, only two of her kids remained with her and she would do anything for them with a touch of drama. The last passenger in the truck was Sally, the mare. She was quietly chewing curd from days ago but Marco could tell she was thinking because her ears did this little dancing thing whenever she was actively thinking deeply. He also knew she was about to say something because Sally found it physically impossible to keep quiet for too long.

“So Marco, what do you think we are going to?” Sally burst out talking. She was a fast talker, ventriloquist almost and overly active by Marco’s opinion. She had entirely too much energy.

“I don’t know. Somewhere good I hope,” Marco replied, trying to stretch his neck to get a final look at the partially roofed barn. The last storm had blown a third of the barn roofing clean off. Gail would have never let the barn get that run down to the extent that parts of it were just up and leaving, like the tiny shed at the north end of the field that disappeared completely after another bad storm.

“Somewhere with grass, I hope. I haven’t had anything good in weeks and my babies are starving,” Maria cried quite dramatically. If she could put one hoof to her forehead to better communicate her predicament, she would.

“Your babies are always starving,” one of the goats said and gained himself a scoff from Maria. Her babies were probably the best part of the bunch. They were so fat that Marco wondered how they got around at all but that was a good thing for farmers, wasn’t it?

“I heard one of the hands say it’s not far from here,” Sally said, wiggling her head against the rope around her neck to see everyone in the back of the truck. She liked to involve everybody in her communications because that increased her chanced of getting a reply.

“Are you sure?” Marco asked. The closest farm he knew about was the Brady’s and they already passed that. He also didn’t trust Sally’s hearing especially after a nearby thunderclap had almost deafened her.

“I don’t know, I’m not sure. What do you think I heard?” She asked Marco who couldn’t begin to rationalize how she could think he would have an answer to that. He wasn’t present when she allegedly heard whatever she thought she did. Sometimes Sally just makes you want to punch yourself in the face.

“How is he to know? He wasn’t there, dummy,” Bacon said in his usual bored tone. Bacon was always bored as if he would rather have been served at the wedding. Marco had never seen him excited about anything. There was that one time Mrs Gail had planted a strange-looking flower and when it had blossomed, Bacon had been strangely excited with the vibrant colour it showed. Marco couldn’t find anything special about the flowers except the fact they were yellow and distracting and commanded entirely too many bees' attention. One of the hands called it a marigold flower or something equally pretentious.

They drove for a long while with everybody chattering and trying to guess what Sally might have heard. The goats started to make jokes about it.

“Maybe she heard the lord. Tell us Sally, was the bush on fire when you heard the voice Sally? That could be the Lord,” one of the funny goats asked, drawing loud bouts of laughter from everybody in the truck.

Marco stopped paying attention to the ribbing going on and instead tried to think of something else. The truth was that he was anxious. He didn’t like changes and moving between farms was a pretty big change. It would have been better if Mrs Summergail had tried to manage and save the farm but since Gail didn’t have the common sense the good Lord gave a Billy goat to teach her how to properly run the farm, she had run it into the ground in less than two years. Now, she was going to sell it and buy herself a small apartment in the city. To be fair, running the farm was a pretty big responsibility for just her and there really wasn’t anything to tie her to the place. She had neither attachment nor connection to the land, the house, the animals, the shed nor the barn. So Marco understood but it didn’t make him look forward to the changes that came with her decision.

“I think we’re here,” Sally said, as the truck took a left turn that led into a rough farm road.

Marco couldn’t explain it but he had become quite afraid as the truck rattled further down the road. There were no houses nearby but that was common in farm areas. He could not hear any animal sound, not the cows mooing nor the pigs. If they were close, he should be able to hear some form of animal noise. He decided it must be drowned out by the sound of the big truck.

“I don’t like this place,” Marco said, not talking to anybody in particular.

“I see a house. No, it’s a barn,” Sally said, stretching her neck to see above the spacing between the timber that was surrounding the truck. She was quite tall so it was easy for her to see but because the back truck was only covered halfway, Marco could soon see the structure far to the left of the road that she referred to and it wasn’t a house. It was just another run-down barn that needed tearing down. Badly managed barns were a big sign that a farm wasn’t doing well but hoped that the barn might not belong to the new owner. It could be a neighbour's or maybe he was one of those farmers that put his livestock first. Only time will tell and since the truck was still moving, they apparently were not there yet.

Where could they be going?

His question was soon answered when they drove across a big sign that said, the local slaughter farm. The whole truck became deadly silent. They all have heard about the local slaughterhouse. They all knew the fate of all animals. Marco just didn’t know his time, their time was going to be this soon.

“The fucking circle of life,” he whispered under his breath.