Etre the Cow by Dr. Sean Kenniff

Author:Dr. Sean Kenniff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9780757395093
Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.
Published: 2010-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

chaptêr seven

Some of the new cows charge the old cows when they first come off the trucks, but the fury doesn’t last. Cow after cow spills down the chutes. Before long, the old pasture is filled to the fences with all sorts of unfortunates—old broads with sagging hides and swinging udders, black heifers, bulls with no horns, even some cows with horns, and lame calves limping close behind their mothers. None of the new cows are plump, their hips pointy and sharp. When the last of the trucks finally pulls away from the pasture, the cows stand rooted like trees to the ground, tails still and flicking their ears with uneasy calm.

Some of the cows along the edges look across to our pasture where the kale leaves crunch beneath our hooves. “Anghf,” they say.

I turn away and lead My Cow and Bull Calf around some brush where the longing will have a harder time finding us.

After chewing most of the day, I am thirsty and Bull Calf follows me to drink from the trough. Our reflections eddy together in the water then separate. Two cows look up from the surface, a bull and his calf. For the first time, I notice Bull Calf’s eyeballs jut from his head in the same way mine do. His snout and brow are a different color, that’s plain to see, but they have the same shape as mine and his nose is turning dark. Our heads have a similar shape only his is smaller. Bull Calf stops drinking and I watch him as the ripples settle in the water. He looks, flicks his ears, and in that moment I think he sees me, or perhaps sees himself. I open my mouth to tell him my name, but before I can get it out of my throat, he drinks again.

When night comes My Cow, Bull Calf, and all the other cows sleep, but I cannot. In the dark I wander and listen to the new cows cry out. Each cow has a different hunger, and I’ve weathered each one the same. They are simple hungers for simple appetites. But none of these cows hunger like I hunger, I think. I am the leafy field and I am the thorns on the brush. I am the pasture inside the pasture, and the only cow here truly starving.

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