Nightmare Farm

There is a farm somewhere with acres and acres of land where trees grow dead and grass grows brown. Flowers do not exist. Despite the fences being broken, the animals do not roam around. They are too depressed and filled with sickness.

In the old, run down barn, the buzz of flies and weak flick of an ear is the only sound. You flinch as a mouse bites your finger. It clings to you, it’s body nearly bones. You try to get it to eat but there is nothing green here to offer the mouse. It drinks your blood instead. You cry for the mouse, as it releases its hold. The mouse cannot lift its body to drink from the bowl of water you brought. Dirty water was all you could find.

Your blood drips into the bowl as you tip it, spilling some for the mouse to lap at. This farm is not the one that you visited as a child. The one where you and your cousins would scream and laugh as you pedaled bikes down the road to jump over hay bales. This farm is a nightmare that you can’t escape—a twisted version of hell where all the animals around you are perpetually dying.

You tried to escape many times but as soon as you reach the end of the gravel road instead of running from the barn, you are running right back into it. Hunger gnaws at your stomach. Being a vegetarian, there is nothing here for you to eat. Attached to the barn is a shed full of every type of meat a cook could want. Some of it is poorly wrapped in butcher paper, tied with string. You prayed that one of the packages would not be filled with meat. You were so hungry that you checked every package. Instead of finding food, you emptied your stomach until yellow foam was all that would come out.

Next, you checked the boxes. Up on a shelf there is one with a sunny label on it. You hadn’t seen it before but now you carefully pull the box down onto the ground. Your heart sinks and stomach clenches at the sound of faint clucking. It’s a box of chickens, two of which still have a faint heart beat. You wretch again, overpowered by the smell before carefully lifting one of the dehydrated, bone thin, largely featherless chickens out of the box.

The other, you can’t stand to touch but your hands move of their own volition. Upon lifting the second chicken with the faint heart beat you discover there is only one true survivor now. Half of the chicken’s body is encrusted on the bottom of the box still, the entrails ooze through your fingers.

It is heart breaking. You have no tears left for this nightmare farm. The sole survivor glugs water so quickly its body turns cold. The swish of water can be heard in its stomach. You don’t know how to help. You aren’t trained for this, you never had pets before arriving here.

A turkey with black ooze dripping from its eyes and mouth watches glumly. It seems incapable of moving. Pigs with evil eyes approach and a hound too. The hound steals the chicken. The pigs give chase, trying to get their share. You are loath to stop them.

“What did I do to wake up in this hell?” You ask the animals, the barn, the sky. Dull eyes look back at you. Sick with hunger, you stand at the door of the barn, looking into the shed. Saliva coats your mouth but you rather wretch. The very idea of killing an animal disgusts you, eating one even more so. You force yourself to do it, your tongue reaching to taste a sausage that had been hanging from the rafters.

It tastes of ash. As you cough and sputter, the voice of the devil whispers to you, “Tastes good, doesn’t it, Hitler?”

You sputter, “My name is Hittler, not Hitler. Please, make it stop.”

“H-I-T-T-L-E-R? Oh, shit. Where is Hitler then? Fuck. So sorry for the mix up.”

Dumbfounded, you suddenly find yourself in a much different place. One where the sun shines, animals happily roam, and the little shed attached to the barn is loaded with all of the freshest fruits and vegetables. You raise a peach to your mouth. It is the most delicious thing you have ever tasted. Your nightmare is over—for now.

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Written by Kelsey Reich on July 9/2021 in Ontario, Canada.