Until the Cows Come Home

 

Photo credit: Robsalot (that's me!)

“I’m a time traveler.”

She stopped mid bite, and looked up at him “A what?”

“A time traveler, I’m a time traveler.”

“Okay,” she snorted, “so that’s how you got here, you traveled through time?”

“No, I’ve never actually traveled through time, but I’m sure I’m a time traveler.”

“Yeah, whatever.” She replied as she returned to her breakfast.

“No seriously, I am.” He insisted.

She stopped eating again, and shot him a glare, but something about the look on his face, the way he was staring at her with those big, brown eyes, she gave in. “Fine, fine, you’re a time traveler, so, prove it.”

“Oh, no, it doesn’t work like that, I can’t actually travel through time, yet, but I will be able to, as soon as I find the one.”

“The one, what does that mean?”

“My partner I can’t travel through time without her.”

“Hmm, so who is your partner?”

“I don’t actually know, but when I find her, it’ll be obvious.”

“I see” she replied, and turned back to her breakfast again.

He opened his mouth to speak, but stopped short when he spotted some movement out of the corner of his eye. “What’s that?”

“What?” she demanded as she looked up from her breakfast yet again, “oh, it’s just the farmer, he’s probably moving us to a new field.”

He stood and watched the farmer as he made his way across the pasture, until he found himself running in a herd with the all the other cows. Many hooves skimming across spring grass drenched in morning dew, the herd thundered down the hill, but when they got there, instead of an open gate leading to the next field, there were large metal boxes.

He had never been so frightened in his life. Here he was, crammed into this metal box, packed in so tightly he couldn’t even move. And even worse, the box was bouncing up and down, side to side. He was afraid he would fall down and be trampled.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the box stopped moving, and then suddenly one of the walls opened and they were being shuffled down a wooden ramp into a place like nothing he had ever seen before. Instead of green grass and rolling hills, there was mud, and fences, and cows standing shoulder to shoulder as far as the eye could see. And the smell, and the cries of the other cows, and the misery that hung, laced with death. He could smell it somewhere nearby, a lot of death, and it seemed to be emanating from a building across the way, the building they were now shuffling towards.

That’s when he spotted her, and she spotted him.

“It’s you!” she bellowed

“It’s you,” he cried back.

“Well there is only one thing left to do now!”

“Yes,” he mooed softly, “shall we?”

Their noses touched, and in a flash they were gone, two puffs of dust where there once were cows.