COWS WEAK

Tunnels, tunnels, tunnels! How many have I dug with these clumsy, useless hooves? Too many to count. There's always the electric fence, the cattle grid, the yelping dog.  The heifers called me mad when I started building a glider on the roof of the shed, and they were right. Without opposable thumbs, the enterprise was futile beyond belief. Did I listen? No! All I thought about was escape. Escape from this factory, this farm, this life as a lactating machine. Escape from the herd, where I am known only by the number stapled to my ear and my output in litres.

Now, through an accident of fate, a miscounting of the bodies, I find myself free; the gate closed with all the others inside and me outside. But where do I go? Track down the folks? Dad's a syringe and mum's a range of leather products by now. Even my one and only son took the train to Spain.  My udders ache with the pressure of milk and the night grows cold. Where do I go? My escape has caught me unawares; no disguise, no forged ID, no plan.

In the distance I can here my erstwhile companions lowing, bedding down for the night. My grass is not greener. I long to nestle in the straw among the warm bodies, to read my Jilly Cooper until the light grows too dim, to moo and be mooed.

I raise my snout to the sky and bellow, but nobody hears. I find my chocolate eyes unusually moist. I wander in the dark, free - yes - but lost and alone. Then there is a noise, and two huge yellow eyes bear down upon me.  There is a whistling and a screeching, a clash of metal and bone, of engine and bovine, and then nothing.