Post by Zombina-Scarlet on Apr 29, 2009 23:28:41 GMT -5
So it wasn't like he loved her back, see? He was just a beast, a dumb animal. Sometimes, when she looked at Bill and he looked back with his bloodshot eyes, she fantasized; she thought about the bull, and his golden hide and the muscles rippling underneath, and told herself that there was someone inside that massive skull. A prince, waiting to be kissed. But that was smacktalk, that was junkie splutter. She wasn't a junkie anymore.
She was twenty-four, with one mistake nearly out of the cradle and another on the way, and she was a farmwife in most respects. She got up early, trudged out into the grey dawn drizzle--unless it was summer, and by then the world was already fried to a crisp--fed the animals, and lingered by her bull's pen as long as she could before she brought herself to trudge back indoors and feed the humans. She was married to a sludge-spitting, farting idiot who hadn't given her a ring--Bill, the Bill, a Bill, just one more man among thousands identical to him. He had picked her up by the scruff of the neck, taken away her syringes, covered up the bruises on her legs with long-skirted things, and thrown her into the barn.
Her life wasn't fair, in any case. Bill made sure of that.
But I wasn't talking about Bill. No one likes Bill. I was talking about his wife and the bull who didn't have a name because he was a machine, and machines for making more cows usually weren't granted names.
See, she was head over heels. He probably didn't have a brain inside that great ringing cathedral of his but she didn't give a damn, the truth was. His strength, his bulk, his beauty--these were the things that made her love him. The glint of the ring in his nose disgusted her--Bill had put it there, or one of his lowlies had, with a thick needle and a wrench that stank of man--but it also transfixed her, a symbol of power and resistance. That bull was a freaking statue, babe. A monument to masculinity.
Anyways, she and Bill were lying in bed one night, her tum making a tent of the bedsheets, the kid just drifted into sleep and all the lights out but one--on Bill's side, of course--when she felt this hand creeping up her ribcage. It was the hand of some brutal barbarian, it was the hand of a dealer she only half remembered, it was the claw of a monster coming to take away her...
...her what?
There was only one thing she could think of that seemed important to her.
Her legs were like coiled springs, and now they let fly, sending her scrambling out of bed so quickly she nearly sprawled across the floor. Quickly now, out the door, don't look now but there's a parade of elephants stampeding down the hallway, someone's dropping the footsteps of bowling balls on the staircase--outside where it's cool and humid and the summer stars are glimmering like they never do in Los Angeles, run, babe, just run. To the bull pen. He's just a machine, hun, making more cows. It's your turn. He's waiting for you.
When everything was said and done, she didn't know what had happened. You know how it is, don't you? It's a freaking tornado, maybe, coming to bring down the walls of your brain and liquidize the soft, mushy innards of your thoughts.
What she knew by the time it got to morning, though, was that there had been pain--not a quick sting, but excruciating pain. Agony. As if something were stretching her in some places and scrunching her in others--all the wrong places, too, nowhere where she could have handled it.
And then, most peculiarly, she had acquired four hooves and felt her ears twitch when all her life she had never been able to perform the slightest wiggle. She had a tail. It didn't have to be explained to her, after that initial moment of panic; she knew, now, that if she looked in a mirror her nose would be wide and wet and black, and her eyes would be soft and brown, glistening, no spark of intelligence to be seen, because you can't tell a thing about a person--or a cow--from their eyes.
The first thing she thought when she had come to terms with herself was that now there was no Bill. There was only the bull, her bull--her maker, as it were. They could love each other now. They were meant for each other. It was meant to be.
So she clopped back to the barn at a brisk trot, since she had run far in her pain and confusion, to find her knight in golden hide. Her head was full of the pink clouds and glittering lands of romance, where jelly-bean people grew gumdrops and licorice sticks and shat Jolly Ranchers. They would be as classic as Romeo and Juliet, she and the bull, when she found him. They would love each other more than the sun loved the sky, or the ocean loved its shores.
Yeah, she found him all right. He was eating, jaw working around a glob of whatever she had given him, with two human hands, yesterday morning. He looked up, eyes gleaming, and snorted.
Hey, she thought, Hi, hello. Of course he didn't hear her. Of course he didn't understand. She had prepared herself for this; she also already knew that unless he understood the garbled mroooooo that she emitted when she tried to speak aloud, she would not be able to communicate with him in words.
What she was not prepared for was the way he thrust his beautiful horns her way when she took a step towards him, fending her off in an act of pure, animal territorialism. She tried again, stepping hesitantly, fearful of those sharp curves, and he nearly gouged her in his rage. Backwards now--come on, babe, no sense in getting yourself killed.
Hot tears prickled her eyes, and things got blurry. She started running, farther this time. It was night when she stopped.
She had nightmares, and it wasn't just the fact that she was sleeping standing up, I can tell you that. She had horrendous visions of the baby she had once carried in her tum--where had it gone, anyways, when she had shifted? She played the unwilling hostess for terrorfests in her brain, in which her bull, her saint, her beauty, ripped from her chest her heart and held it aloft with a hoof that now looked like a hand, curled like a talon and hardened into stone. She was in the barn, staring at Bill's bloated carcass; it swung in gentle circles, neck embraced by a lasso and already turning interesting colors. He looked blankly back at her, and she screamed. Then, in the space of a blink, she was walking through the arbor of a churchyard, and the gargoyles gazing down at her were bulls. She stepped out of the trees into the light, hungry for the warmth, and the carved monsters swooped, aiming at her skull, at her breast, at her knees where the permanent bruises bloomed like purplish flowers on her white, freezing skin.
At some point, she must have fallen over. She was teetering on the brink of wakefulness, roused by the thought that she was moving, or being moved, but it took only a second for her nightfears to drag her back down again.
She woke among cows. Thousands of them. Millions, maybe, all milling around within the tight confines of their pens, a sea of brown and white, the stench of them filling the air so that she nearly gagged. Their doleful eyes, the slack jaws; so many stupid creatures with their stupid faces crowded into one lot. There were troughs everywhere, brimming with feed.
A feed lot... She had seen these places from a distance--her husband had controlled a few, despite her protests, and even from a mile away they had disgusted her. She felt as if she would vomit; but, to her horror, her head bent automatically to sample the food laid out before her as if this were a feast, not a fattening of the ingredients for a feast. She tore herself away and clamped her jaw shut, looking up at the sordid scene, if only to prevent herself from looking down.
Among the ocean of beasts moved two men, dark figures pushing past the seething masses, coming closer, closer still--until she recognized, with a sickening twinge of hope, Bill and one of his lowlies. They were shouting over the brays and mroo's of their charges, and as they hiked towards her she could pick out a few words. Eventually, they drew to a halt, the lowly squinting around as if he were searching for something.
"Got 'er!" he crowed, and began to lead Bill forwards. She knew, then, that they were coming for her--that Bill had seen her transformation and was intent on rescuing her, because deep down, he loved her. Deep down. Everything was going to be all right.
She could barely hear what they were discussing, even though they stood directly beside her, but she looked as intently and as gratefully as she could towards both of them, and thought at Bill as hard as she could. The lowly was gesturing towards her legs, and she turned her head to see what he was pointing out, catching out of the corner of her eye the badge on his shirt that showed he was a vet. He was showing Bill the track marks running up and down all four of her legs.
They spoke more, and the longer they talked the less sure she was of Bill's intent to rescue her. She became worried that he did not even know that before him stood a cow who had formerly been his wife, and who would very much like to be his wife again, as a human, not a beast.
Like I said, babe. Her life wasn't fair. She considered this as they walked away through the sea of burgers and roast, wondering how next to proceed. As far as I know, she's still there--unless she was your dinner last night, slathered in ketchup and mustard, sitting juicy on the bun, just as you like it.
Yeah, babe. Just as you like it.
[[pretty bad here at the end, I'll do some editing tomorrow. any criticism welcome!]]
She was twenty-four, with one mistake nearly out of the cradle and another on the way, and she was a farmwife in most respects. She got up early, trudged out into the grey dawn drizzle--unless it was summer, and by then the world was already fried to a crisp--fed the animals, and lingered by her bull's pen as long as she could before she brought herself to trudge back indoors and feed the humans. She was married to a sludge-spitting, farting idiot who hadn't given her a ring--Bill, the Bill, a Bill, just one more man among thousands identical to him. He had picked her up by the scruff of the neck, taken away her syringes, covered up the bruises on her legs with long-skirted things, and thrown her into the barn.
Her life wasn't fair, in any case. Bill made sure of that.
But I wasn't talking about Bill. No one likes Bill. I was talking about his wife and the bull who didn't have a name because he was a machine, and machines for making more cows usually weren't granted names.
See, she was head over heels. He probably didn't have a brain inside that great ringing cathedral of his but she didn't give a damn, the truth was. His strength, his bulk, his beauty--these were the things that made her love him. The glint of the ring in his nose disgusted her--Bill had put it there, or one of his lowlies had, with a thick needle and a wrench that stank of man--but it also transfixed her, a symbol of power and resistance. That bull was a freaking statue, babe. A monument to masculinity.
Anyways, she and Bill were lying in bed one night, her tum making a tent of the bedsheets, the kid just drifted into sleep and all the lights out but one--on Bill's side, of course--when she felt this hand creeping up her ribcage. It was the hand of some brutal barbarian, it was the hand of a dealer she only half remembered, it was the claw of a monster coming to take away her...
...her what?
There was only one thing she could think of that seemed important to her.
Her legs were like coiled springs, and now they let fly, sending her scrambling out of bed so quickly she nearly sprawled across the floor. Quickly now, out the door, don't look now but there's a parade of elephants stampeding down the hallway, someone's dropping the footsteps of bowling balls on the staircase--outside where it's cool and humid and the summer stars are glimmering like they never do in Los Angeles, run, babe, just run. To the bull pen. He's just a machine, hun, making more cows. It's your turn. He's waiting for you.
When everything was said and done, she didn't know what had happened. You know how it is, don't you? It's a freaking tornado, maybe, coming to bring down the walls of your brain and liquidize the soft, mushy innards of your thoughts.
What she knew by the time it got to morning, though, was that there had been pain--not a quick sting, but excruciating pain. Agony. As if something were stretching her in some places and scrunching her in others--all the wrong places, too, nowhere where she could have handled it.
And then, most peculiarly, she had acquired four hooves and felt her ears twitch when all her life she had never been able to perform the slightest wiggle. She had a tail. It didn't have to be explained to her, after that initial moment of panic; she knew, now, that if she looked in a mirror her nose would be wide and wet and black, and her eyes would be soft and brown, glistening, no spark of intelligence to be seen, because you can't tell a thing about a person--or a cow--from their eyes.
The first thing she thought when she had come to terms with herself was that now there was no Bill. There was only the bull, her bull--her maker, as it were. They could love each other now. They were meant for each other. It was meant to be.
So she clopped back to the barn at a brisk trot, since she had run far in her pain and confusion, to find her knight in golden hide. Her head was full of the pink clouds and glittering lands of romance, where jelly-bean people grew gumdrops and licorice sticks and shat Jolly Ranchers. They would be as classic as Romeo and Juliet, she and the bull, when she found him. They would love each other more than the sun loved the sky, or the ocean loved its shores.
Yeah, she found him all right. He was eating, jaw working around a glob of whatever she had given him, with two human hands, yesterday morning. He looked up, eyes gleaming, and snorted.
Hey, she thought, Hi, hello. Of course he didn't hear her. Of course he didn't understand. She had prepared herself for this; she also already knew that unless he understood the garbled mroooooo that she emitted when she tried to speak aloud, she would not be able to communicate with him in words.
What she was not prepared for was the way he thrust his beautiful horns her way when she took a step towards him, fending her off in an act of pure, animal territorialism. She tried again, stepping hesitantly, fearful of those sharp curves, and he nearly gouged her in his rage. Backwards now--come on, babe, no sense in getting yourself killed.
Hot tears prickled her eyes, and things got blurry. She started running, farther this time. It was night when she stopped.
She had nightmares, and it wasn't just the fact that she was sleeping standing up, I can tell you that. She had horrendous visions of the baby she had once carried in her tum--where had it gone, anyways, when she had shifted? She played the unwilling hostess for terrorfests in her brain, in which her bull, her saint, her beauty, ripped from her chest her heart and held it aloft with a hoof that now looked like a hand, curled like a talon and hardened into stone. She was in the barn, staring at Bill's bloated carcass; it swung in gentle circles, neck embraced by a lasso and already turning interesting colors. He looked blankly back at her, and she screamed. Then, in the space of a blink, she was walking through the arbor of a churchyard, and the gargoyles gazing down at her were bulls. She stepped out of the trees into the light, hungry for the warmth, and the carved monsters swooped, aiming at her skull, at her breast, at her knees where the permanent bruises bloomed like purplish flowers on her white, freezing skin.
At some point, she must have fallen over. She was teetering on the brink of wakefulness, roused by the thought that she was moving, or being moved, but it took only a second for her nightfears to drag her back down again.
She woke among cows. Thousands of them. Millions, maybe, all milling around within the tight confines of their pens, a sea of brown and white, the stench of them filling the air so that she nearly gagged. Their doleful eyes, the slack jaws; so many stupid creatures with their stupid faces crowded into one lot. There were troughs everywhere, brimming with feed.
A feed lot... She had seen these places from a distance--her husband had controlled a few, despite her protests, and even from a mile away they had disgusted her. She felt as if she would vomit; but, to her horror, her head bent automatically to sample the food laid out before her as if this were a feast, not a fattening of the ingredients for a feast. She tore herself away and clamped her jaw shut, looking up at the sordid scene, if only to prevent herself from looking down.
Among the ocean of beasts moved two men, dark figures pushing past the seething masses, coming closer, closer still--until she recognized, with a sickening twinge of hope, Bill and one of his lowlies. They were shouting over the brays and mroo's of their charges, and as they hiked towards her she could pick out a few words. Eventually, they drew to a halt, the lowly squinting around as if he were searching for something.
"Got 'er!" he crowed, and began to lead Bill forwards. She knew, then, that they were coming for her--that Bill had seen her transformation and was intent on rescuing her, because deep down, he loved her. Deep down. Everything was going to be all right.
She could barely hear what they were discussing, even though they stood directly beside her, but she looked as intently and as gratefully as she could towards both of them, and thought at Bill as hard as she could. The lowly was gesturing towards her legs, and she turned her head to see what he was pointing out, catching out of the corner of her eye the badge on his shirt that showed he was a vet. He was showing Bill the track marks running up and down all four of her legs.
They spoke more, and the longer they talked the less sure she was of Bill's intent to rescue her. She became worried that he did not even know that before him stood a cow who had formerly been his wife, and who would very much like to be his wife again, as a human, not a beast.
Like I said, babe. Her life wasn't fair. She considered this as they walked away through the sea of burgers and roast, wondering how next to proceed. As far as I know, she's still there--unless she was your dinner last night, slathered in ketchup and mustard, sitting juicy on the bun, just as you like it.
Yeah, babe. Just as you like it.
[[pretty bad here at the end, I'll do some editing tomorrow. any criticism welcome!]]
