The Judas Cow

“Tomorrow when they open the gates, do not follow me,” the cow they called Judas said to me.

“Why not?” I asked, for I was new to the pasture.

“They take you do your death!” he cried.

“That is absurd. Everyone knows they take you to Sunshine Valley where the grass is always tall and green. You don't get to go because you have no faith.”

“It is true! None who go ever return!”

“Here we have this field where there is hay and a roof over our heads and room to stretch and graze. I am milked daily so that my udders do not swell. If they wanted to kill us, why would they take such care of us?”

“They intend to eat you!” Judas said. “They carve the flesh from your bones and devour your body.”

“Nonesense. They have no claws, no sharp teeth. They lack the speed of wolves. Ha! As though these few creatures could overpower us or consume so many.”

“I know what I know,” said Judas and walked away.

The following day, we followed him up a ramp, but he was diverted at the last minute to another pen, his punishment for having no faith in Sunshine Valley. As I walked up the ramp, however, I couldn't shake what he had said. I decided, though too late for the decision to actually mean anything, that even if we were being led to the slaughter, the caretakers have been nothing but kind to me. I will not do them the unkindness of breaking our trust now.

- Originally mailed to J. Cox of New Oreleans, Louisiana

The Long Road

There is a road with no outlets, no cross streets, no place to turn around that stretches from Calhoun, West Virginia to Red Hills, North Dakota. There are no gas stations or towns or even cellphone reception. Just mile after grueling mile of worn pavement and trees. About a hundred and fifty miles in, the road begins to line itself with old cars long abandoned, having run out of gas years ago with no pickup to come and get them. When the cars die, when there's no where else to go, families start walking, taking with them only what they can carry. The fashion clothes from the blue vinyl interiors and weapons from windshield wipers, hubcaps, and shards of broken window to hunt for food as they walk. Children are born. Old ones die. The road gives and the road takes. They say those who reach the end arrive with new eyes, eyes of the warrior and the hunter, eyes of the way, the path long forgotten by man. Many who survive the trip turn around and return down the beaten asphalt path, back to the wilderness and the trees and the savage life they have come to accept as real where they walk by the sun and feed from the plants and never ate meat they did not know, dried and turned to jerky on the old blacktop, for such is the way of the road.

- Originally mailed to J. Womack in Brooklyn, New York

Beauty Parlors

The back alley beauty parlors were battle grounds in the war between the those who could afford gene scrubbing and those whose genetics were untampered with. Unable to afford professional genetic modification, the poor often resorted to places such as this, where unlicensed med school dropouts would tailor the DNA of the poor so that they and their children could be biologically better off, be it more beautiful, more athletic, more intelligent. The ruling elite of the wealthy, bred from the womb to be perfect in every way, would crack down on these clinics first with legislation and later with firepower. They claimed this was simply for the underprivileged public's own good, to protect them from shoddy workmanship that could do who knows what to their bodies. The poor, however, believed it was control, for how could they compete against the wealthy and gain a fair foothold when those with enough wealth and power could ensure their children would be more cunning than the naturals and their enforcement squads stronger and more agile.

- Originally mailed to C. Townsend of Gulfport, Mississippi