What It Means to Be Human

The first few nights I spent here I did not sleep well. The hay poked and scratched at me all over; a pile angry cats, which irritated my skin and made me itch. I tried not to move too much, which seemed to help with the itching, but even when my body found a still moment, my mind was tossing and turning. Bits of my old life were still stuck to me the way food sometimes sticks to a plate so stubbornly that it won’t even come off in the dishwasher. Each day I would spend some time scrubbing it away. This is how to get clean.

On the fifth night I slept soundly, like I was the god damned baby Jesus himself in that manger under the stars. The hay enveloped me. I felt nothing. I didn’t dream and I woke up spotless.

That was the day first I talked to M. Or, rather, she talked to me. I was standing in the doorway, just watching the rain come down in the field, when I heard a voice behind me. My first thought was, Shit. It didn’t work. I spent the last month running away from all of this bullshit, so careful to cover my tracks; so careful to scrub each day, and it found me anyway.

“Relax.” said the voice. “You’re not crazy.” Over on the other side of the barn, in the back corner, that’s where it was. I knew what was back there. Every day at 7am the old man would come in and tell her good morning. I would hide in the rafters and watch him walk her out to graze. And every day he would bring her back in at 7pm. I would hide in the rafters and watch him walk her back in, to that back corner, and tell her good night.

But today it was raining. So today, the old man didn’t come for her. Which means I got to stay here in this moment where I was somehow talking to a cow and there was no escaping this as my truth.

“You’re not crazy,” she said again.

“I might have to disagree with you,” I said. I heard a sort of snort that implied frustration.

“Oh, just because you and I are able to communicate now, that means you’re crazy? There can be no other explanation for this unusual turn of events?”

“I don’t see another explanation, but if you’d like to offer one, please do.” She sighed. Rolled her eyes.

“You and I are both just animals. Doesn’t it make sense we can talk?”

“But I could never talk to you before?”

“Well, think about this- what made us different before now, you and me?”

I scratched my head and squinted and tried really hard to think logically about this.

“Well. Let’s see. I’ve always walked on two legs. You’ve always walked on four. I’ve always gone to get coffee in the morning. I would drive to the diner every morning and get coffee. And eggs. Bacon. Toast. Breakfast.” I was aware that I was talking about the past, about things I had done, but there was nothing nostalgic about it. My voice came out monotone and matter-of-fact. “You don’t drink coffee. You don’t eat anything, other than grass. You’ve never driven to the diner. You’ve never driven period…”

She stopped me. “You’re just listing things we did. I’m asking who we were.” We stood quietly for a while. The rain was coming in sheets, slapping the wooden roof and bouncing off the corrugated metal awning the old man built. My body was still. My mind was still.

“I don’t know. I know now I just count things all day and I don’t mind it.”

“I graze all day and I don’t give it a second thought.”

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“Doesn’t matter. Call me whatever you’d like.”

“I’ll call you M. For “Moo,” because until now that’s all I ever heard you say.” She bowed her head.

“And what about you? Do you have a name?” I looked down, tilted my head to the side. Shrugged.

“I don’t think so.”

“Then I’ll call you S for Shit. Because until now that’s all I ever heard you say.”

***

The next morning the old man came and took M out to graze. I sat in the barn, alone, and counted the number of Two-by-fours I could see. When I finished that, I stood up and walked around and counted the rest. When I finished that, I started to count the straws of hay. I was up to 17,600 when I noticed the sun was low in the sky. I climbed up into the rafters just as the old man brought M back into her pen. When he left, I climbed down and went to the back corner.

“How was grazing?” I asked.

“It was grazing. Same as always. How was counting things?”

“It was counting things.”

“You made a mess of your bed,” she said. And I had. The hay was everywhere, from where I had been counting it. It was no longer in a nice neat pile.

“Oh well. I’ll sleep on the ground.”

“Have you thought any more about my question?”

“Oh. Not really. I mean, I thought a little about breakfast. How I don’t eat it anymore. I just eat nuts now. I bought a huge bag of trail mix when I left. That stuff stays good forever. And I’ll eat fruit when I have it. But I’ve been here for about a week and there’s no fruit. So, just nuts.” We sat in silence for a bit. M stared at the adjacent wall, and I stared at the floor.

“Where were you before this?” she asked me.

“I slept on a train for a little bit. I found an abandoned house once. I was there for a few days. Just kept moving and moving until I got far enough away.”

“And now you’re far enough away?”

“I think so. Although, I know I can’t stay here forever. I don’t know what the old man would do if he found me. But I’m not too bothered by it at the moment.”

“Do you remember what made you leave?” I had a flash in my mind- A face. Red cheeks. Furrowed brows- but then it was gone.

“Just wanted to get away,” I told her.

***

We talked each night. Small talk, about nothing particularly important. M continued to ask me questions, and I continued to not know a lot of things. I knew I should leave the barn, move on- that staying in one spot for too long was dangerous. But I didn’t have the energy.

One night, after about two weeks of being here, I had a dream. The face with red cheeks and furrowed brows came back. We were yelling, crying. Saying things we didn’t mean. Or maybe we did. I woke up in a cold sweat. Early. Before the old man even came in.

I snuck over to M’s pen and whispered.

“M. M, wake up. I remember something. I remember breakfast…”

“Yes, yes. The diner. The coffee. The eggs. The bacon…”

“Right. But I remember there was someone with me. Another person. Went with me every day. To the diner.”

“And? What about this other person?”

“Well. I guess she was my friend. No, more than that. She was something important to me. A partner.”

“I’ve never had that.”

“And, well, one night we had this fight. It was one of those arguments where in the end you don’t even know what you were arguing about but you know it feels different. It’s heavy and sticky and weighs you down like a winter coat that’s three sizes too big. Envelopes you. Makes you feel dirty, you know?”

“No, I don’t know. I’ve never had a fight.”

“Well, when it was over, we just looked at each other. Didn’t know what to do. Loved each other for years but in that moment we were total strangers, ya know?”

“No. I never loved anyone.”

“That’s what I ran from. Those feelings. The pain. I… I reached into myself and pulled it out and I… I threw it. I threw it hard against the ground. But it got up. This black shadow got up and it came after me, and I knocked it down over and over again, but each time it got back up, so I… I locked it in a closet. And I ran. And each time I stopped somewhere, I pulled out a little more; scrubbed off a little more and left it. And ran again. And then, finally, it was all gone.”

“So that’s it. That’s the stuff that made us different before. Now we know.”

“It was terrible.”

“But you got rid of. You got rid of what made you human.”

“Yeah. I guess I did.”

“S?” Her voice was quiet.

“Yeah?”

“Do you love me?” I searched myself for any remaining piece of that feeling. I dug down deep and looked around inside and my hands came out clean.

“No, I guess not.”

“So, then, we’ll never fight and you’ll never leave,” she nodded. “That’s good.” The sun was just beginning to pull itself up above the horizon. I lifted my head.

“Hey, I think there’s still some time before you have to go out grazing," I said. "Do you want to count the Two-by-fours?”