To the Bovine

Everyone thinks their family is weird, and every family has its secrets. Oftentimes, they’re pretty mundane. Affairs and addictions are common, but they still demand a hushed accusatory tone with every passing mention. Even when every family’s got the same secrets, we like to pretend we’re unique, that our shame is independent of the larger system, that it’s our duty to sweep the damning evidence into the basement and pretend that we are normal, functioning, sane.

I went to college in a city up north, and that didn’t bode well with my family. Our blood was rural, they said. The smoke and smog and lights and noise would be too much for my fragile heart. (It’s true, I had recurring bouts of arrhythmia in my youth, but they went to track meets often enough to know I wouldn’t keel over that easily.) In part, I went to prove them wrong, but I needed to get away at any rate.

Our cows gave me a baleful look when I left, or at least, I like to think they did. Their eyes always seemed so sad. I suppose they knew, somehow, what was coming for them. They couldn’t escape, and I didn’t want to be like them, trapped in that field with only one place to go in the end.

In some way, I guess this was my way of coping with that knowledge. No one in the family cared about those cows, not like I did, and it bothered me. The creatures didn’t even put up a fight. I knew I couldn’t change the way we treated them, so I ran away. It was a coward’s course, sure, but the practice would continue with or without me. There were motivations beyond my understanding. It was bigger than me, bigger than the family, bigger than the cows. I just couldn’t wrap my head around that.

Because really, it’s all about sacrifice. The whole operation. The cows, my family. Nothing is free, and there’s a price for everything. Sometimes, that price is a cow. Sometimes, it’s freedom.

For a while, I assumed the cows were for milk; the market in town was a popular place, and there weren’t many dairy farms in the area, after all. But then I realized that we didn’t have enough fridge space to store the milk of three hundred cows, and anyway, the milk in our fridge was from the chain grocer; what’s the deal with that? By the time I understood that my family was killing the cows, I didn’t have time to rationalize it by dismissing it as butchery.

See, we aren’t the only ones who have an appreciation for livestock. But we do have a steady supply on this planet, and well, someone’s got to provide the goods to the folks who demand it. That’s basic economics. And in this case, when the customer doesn’t get what they want, that could mean very bad things for us. All of us. Cataclysmic bad news.

Mamma sat me down when I found out to explain the arrangement. She smoothed back my bangs even though she knew I hated when she did that, but I let her. Someone has to do the dirty jobs, Sam, she’d said, giving me that patient but business-like smile she usually reserved for neighborhood kids when they trespassed. We don’t always have a choice in the matter. And it’s the noblest thing in the world, making that kind of a sacrifice. If you don’t understand now, you will someday.

She was right. I didn’t understand. I vowed that I never would. Submitting to some big manipulative force? Obeying a faceless ruler? Surrendering the most basic freedoms? It all seemed so contradictory to everything my family had touted in church and at dinners when my uncles drank too much beer and their wives smoked cigars in the kitchen. In hindsight, those were the only times they seemed relaxed. They worked hard, harder than anyone I’ve ever known, and it wasn’t even for their own benefit.

I’ve come around. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. I got my degree, and I decided to leave the city as soon as I was able. The atmosphere didn’t break me; it was lively, and there were good people there, but the night skies were hazy. It was too easy to forget those bitter truths when you couldn’t see the stars.

So I’m headed home to where the night is clear and long and the world is smaller, quieter, more significant. I never found meaning in academia like I thought I would, but that might just be my curse. It’s in my blood, that rural calling, that promise of fulfillment. I should have known better, but Mamma says it’s just fine that I know now.

I’ve only got a few hours left on the road, and the weight of my past decisions is heavy on my chest. When I get anxious like this, my heart flutters like it used to, and I’ve found myself wondering how much time I’ve got left. There’s a chance I won’t be much help on the farm after all, but my resolve to return is stronger than anything I’ve felt before. And even if I can’t tend to the cattle or conduct rituals or commune with the aliens that come down to collect, there are ways I can be of service. I can feel this truth as a part of myself, something I never wanted to acknowledge but know to be true.

I park by the pasture, a distance from the house where the lights in the windows cut through the darkness like beacons calling me home. It’s been years, but I am drawn to the field as always. There is a small cluster of cattle there already, huddled together for warmth, and as I approach, one lifts her head.

In her eyes, I see myself, silhouetted by the stars in the sky behind me. I reach out to stroke her head, and she utters a gentle call that compels the others to gather. As the herd makes their way to this side of their enclosure, I hear the front door slam open and my Mamma is on the porch, waving over her head and yelling for the others to wake up, come down. I smile even though I know she can’t see me.

We all make sacrifices for the sake of others. This is human nature, something that can’t be taught. The cows don’t know what we’re doing, but they don’t complain either. Somehow, some way, I believe they understand that they’re a part of something important.

And now, I finally understand it, too.