The Cowfield

Timothy Montgomery

Born September 2, 2043

Died October 13, 2054

“Muuhhhhhhhhh!” I always screamed so pathetically in my last days. I spent the last few years of my life that way – mooing and shrieking like some sort of domesticated, bovine ape. I knew the cow fields bordering Abry were dangerous – my mother had always made me well aware of that – but I couldn’t help running around out there, in those open spaces. I had to get away from the smog – the muggy, toxic goop of that unnaturally shifting city. The relatively big sky allowed me to breathe; my chest contracted and retracted with pleasure when I was there, as if at least relieved.

The cows always stared at me – they had watchful eyes. I sprang through the fields, excited about a world primed for exploration. I sifted through the short, trampled grass, I climbed the fences, I trudged across the dirty creek – the cows, nearby, lapping up the muddy, swirling polluted water.

I ran into Farmer Coleman only rarely. He wasn’t a very nice man – he just stared at me, as if he were planning something. I guess, retrospectively, I know that he was.

I tramped around the clumpy dirt of the cow field, which was weathered by years of animal grazing. I stared up to the old red, cracked painted barn. I knew Farmer Coleman was always in there. He never spent any time in his actual house – which sat lonesome atop a nearby hill – he loved that barn. I laughed, cackling loudly into the free air, so fresh, so free away from the clutching smog of Abry, with its putrid cheese-factory, with its clanging, grating, claustrophobic noises ringing out from the car parts manufacturers at all hours – day or night.

On one occasion, I couldn’t stop cackling. I continued belly laughing – wide-eyed and manic in my state of joy. The cattle, disturbed, looked up to me. They glared at me, in both anger and fear, like Abrian cattle – as everyone well knows – are prone to do. Their eyes widened, as if to shush me. They munched the grass in visibly apparent hatred, their mouths swirling in counterclockwise fashion as the molars of their eerily human teeth ground up the brittle hay, void of nutrition. They stared. Their eyes portrayed fear. I didn’t think much about that. I didn’t care about those cows.

Farmer Coleman sometimes noticed me running around. Most of the time, he was too lazy to do anything about it, but sometimes, he stormed out of the barn, through the field, yelling at me – trying to catch me. I’d just go home when he did that, but I’d always come back the following day. Father Coleman hated me for that; he couldn’t snag me – he could only briefly shoo me away.

One overcast afternoon, I was rolling around playfully in the field. The eternally purple Kentucky sky blended with the swirling grey clouds to create a fantastic, natural painting. I closed my eyes, nodding off to sleep. When I eventually opened them – heavy blinking and groggy – I saw standing atop me, staring – glaring, Father Coleman. He squinted at me, grinning. He grabbed me by the ankle, dragging me through the bumpy field. I flailed about, but it was no use. He took me to the barn, dragging me even across the gravel of the road.

I knew the stories about the barn – about why the cows in the field were so bizarre. I didn’t believe any of those tales, but they didn’t seem terribly farfetched – especially considering the bizarre nature of Abry. The field, I determined, was at worst the safest place in the city – even if it was filled with previously human cattle; even if a psychotic, isolated landowner ran the place.

Father Coleman flipped open the wooden latch to the giant barn door and swung it ajar. He threw me into the massive room, onto a hay-strewn, chalky dirt floor. I coughed. He chuckled nefariously:

“It’s time for an experiment,” he said, “It’s time to add to my cattle!”

He took me upstairs. He injected something into my neck. I passed out instantly, painlessly.

When I awoke, I was back out in the field. I stood erect, though on four legs instead of two. I mooed, and mooed again. I ate some grass; it was disgusting. It sat poorly in my stomach. I couldn’t stop eating it, though – it felt natural. It happened as if by instinct.

I lived the rest of my days as a cow, chewing cud, further grinding my withering, still human molars. Father Coleman hadn’t yet figured out the teeth, I guess.

I lived like that until the time came – the time in which I was led by leash – from the field back into the barn – for slaughter.

I’ve been gone for quite some time, now, but I can still see everything. I still exist – Abry refuses to release me from its toxic grip. I float around the swirling, haunted atmosphere of the place, absent – void, though still cognizant. Still here.

Father Coleman still adds to his herd, all the time. I can do nothing about that.

The cows moo. My flying specter sometimes does as well.

End