Cows, cowboys, cowgirls, and so much mooing
Milked on June 2, 2024.
And then: As suddenly as it came on, it departed. The blockade had been lifted. Like a queef in the night, it vanished. I spun around in happy circles, pweeing madly—until I got dizzy, fell out of my five-legged chair, and started pweeing all over the floor instead. Then I picked myself up and went on a jaunt around town—I in my jauntiest burnt-umber fez, with Becasue in her belliest cowbells.
“Moooooooo!!”
And there they were in their boviary glory: A gang of aurochs and gazelles covered in goiters, soaked in antifreeze, and eating elderberry-flavored crème brûlée. I knew these were the proto-cows and sub-antelopes I was seeking.
And then: David the Gnome walked in on us, snatched my fez, and departed in a puff of alabasterous smoke! Things were getting stranger. Things were afoot. I raised my hand—were things now ahand?—the smoke cleared. Mooing could be heard off in the distance. Before me stood a bovipomorphic man in a cowboy hat. It wasn’t Rory Calhoun, however. I knew this was the man I was seeking.
I had the sudden urge to look down. My own sciurine form had been replaced… with one strongly boviform. I was no longer a six-foot-tall man–squirrel… I was an auroch myself. I could still taste the antifreeze in the back of my nose. I glanced back up. My bovipomorphic pal—none other than Marshal Moo Montana himself—smiled knowingly. I would never be a man–squirrel again. David the Gnome popped back in, waggled his beard at me, and snatched my new cowboy hat. I gave chase. The man–cow watched us, laughing heartily. David the Gnome again disappeared in a flurry of alabaster. The distant mooing grew louder… closer.
Was I a cowherder? Was my spingly-bongle–ridden surname (“Årp,” you nincompoops!) now “Bouvier”? Was I descended from a long line of French cowherds stretching back to Charlemagne and Marge Simpson? Or was I just a coward? A bee landed on my nose; I ran off screeching like a twelve-year-old girl still in her pigtails.
In petty retribution for making me look like a cow herd, I smashed David the Gnome into the dust. And his little fox, too. Then it dawned on me—those were just ceramic caricatures. The real David the Gnome was alive and well—in a hole in a tree. So I set all the trees ablaze. The trees screamed and protested and shot their acorns at me… but my carefully constructed plate armor protected me. And my fez—which I stole back before setting the world afire.
I snorted and laughed. I laughed and snorted. Marshal Moo Montana chided me for burning down the forest. Then I found myself riding a horse, on my way back to Moo Mesa. My big little redheaded huzzey-muffet was alongside me on her own horse, wearing her finest cowgirl outfit replete with a cowbell necklace, cowbell anklets, and cowbells on her udders. Never had there been a more bovinary sight.
And then: David the Gnome walked in on us. He snatched my fez and every one of Becasue’s cowbells! I gave chase—but who can chase a gnome when he dissipates in a puff of smokey alabaster?
I murped angrily. Everything was suddenly ablaze. This was strangely comforting. The cows were mooing. Blocks of cheese melted and oozed down from the clouds above. No one could stop it. No one could put the cheesefires out.
The Bovinarium was afire now. Explosions rang in the distance. Cheese detonated. Urgent mooing could be heard coming from all directions. The delicious smell of sizzling steaks and melting cheese filled my nostrils. (And trust me: I’ve a lot of nostrils to fill!) Moo Mesa would never be rebuilt. Everything ends in fire and this was no different. Or it freezes to death. Or it gets run over by stampeding cattle. I looked up. And here came a herd of stampeding cattle. And they were afire. This was not going to be my day.
And then: There were turtles. Teratogenic turtles hurling wadded-up slices of flaming pizza at our heads in an attempt to set our hair equally afire. The stampeding herd (of cattle, not turtles) passed over us—a fury of clattering hooves and ringing cowbells. I ducked into a turtle-hole in the ground and was spared the worst of it; I only ended up with part of my skull mashed into a fine pulp when it was all over.
And then: My hair caught afire.