Don't Feel Bad About Eating That Hamburger,
They Want it That Way
by Victorya
Ellie May and Gypsy Rose stood in a field and chewed. It was clover season, and the area beneath their black-splotched hooves exploded in bright emerald leaves and small yellow flowers. Blades of grass so green they were almost blue fought their way through the soil and carpet of clover only to be greeted by the harshness of hooves or grinding teeth searching for something tasty, or, just something else to bite down on.
"Good eating today, 'innit?" Gypsy Rose said. She pulled out a particularly stubborn blade of grass and moved it with her big saliva-coated tongue, veins throbbing with the effort, and raised her muzzle to the sky. Her nose was a mass of black spots on soft suede pink from which sprang a few black wiry hairs. She inhaled deeply, rolling her big brown bovine eyes back into her head. "Oh yeah, it's good stuff today."
"Cud," Ellie May said. "Third chamber. Premium vintage. Don't know why you like that fresh stuff so much."
"It's new," Gypsy Rose replied. "Third chamber, huh?"
"Third chamber. Always a winner," Ellie May said. She looked across the field to the fence that separated the cows from the rest of the farm and sighed. The barbs glistened silver sunlight. Gypsy Rose followed her friend's gaze and sighed as well. Partially chewed grass fell from her lips.
"Sometimes I think how unfair it is," Gypsy Rose said. "Day after day, just here chewing and chewing and chewing. Sure, it's fun and all, but—"
"—but just once you'd like to die," Ellie May said.
"Yeah," Gypsy Rose sighed. She folded her front legs and then let her rear fall to the ground with a giant 'Plop!' She stopped chewing on the grass and let her head fall atop her front legs. Flies congregated around her and, after a couple swishes of her tail, she stopped that too.
"No fly swatting today?" Ellie May said. She walked to stand over Gypsy Rose. Thick gobs of drool fell from her lips in long languid stands of translucent wetness, complete with the occasional foam bubble and streaks of green, as she spoke.
"Maybe one will have Anthrax?"
"Or Mad Cow," Ellie May snorted. She stopped swishing her tail too. "Any bite you yet?"
"No," Gypsy Rose said.
"Me neither," Ellie May said, dropping more partially digested grass atop Gypsy Rose's head.
"Remember Betsy?" Ellie may asked. "I spoke to her yesterday. She came to me in a dream."
"She got to die, didn't she?"
"Yeah. She came to me and laughed. Said she felt for me. Hey, I got an idea!" Ellie May said, and, before she told Gypsy Rose her plan she ran full force across the field. She ran and felt the grass in her hooves, the wind whistling in her ears, and that high pitched sound it made going through the tag on her ear. 129G, that was Ellie May. She ran and jumped and became wrapped in the barbed wire that surrounded the field.
Gypsy Rose raised her head, muzzle to the breeze catching the scent of blood.
"Wish I'd thought of that," she said, and then began to chew once more.
BACK to The Zooicides