Milk Farm

I woke up on a milk farm, naked and afraid. The smell of cow shit and damp straw infesting my lungs. Damp straw and who knows what else jammed in the crack of my godamned ass. Cogs wobbled in my brain. The chipped teeth ground up against each other until something resembling a consistent rhythm was found. Hazy images of the night before flickered past. The girl from the record shop, the one with purple hair that used to be blonde. The twins that never smiled and their weird sunglasses. Bottle after bottle of absinth. Something that looked like a cigarette hanging out of the left corner of my mouth.

I shook it all away and looked down my scuffed and dirty arms to a tattoo at my wrist. The lines were blue like the ink from an old pen found at the back of the kitchen junk drawer, the skin around it red and angry. At first, I thought it was a key. When I held it closer, I realized, of all the stupid things, that it was a bottle opener. It looked like something beaten into shape out of a rusty railroad spike. The fleeting thought came to me that maybe I was right the first time, a key after all, but what door it would open by removing a crimped metal cap I had no idea.

I propped myself up in the middle of what I thought was an otherwise empty stall. That’s when I noticed the cat, perched on a post at the far end near the slat board wall, its glossy black coat camouflaged among the shadows. Half-closed golden eyes rested on me. I couldn’t tell if it was annoyed by my presence or entirely unaffected. The importance of the question was soon lost. The cat’s eyes widened, pupils and all, staring over my shoulder. Its body tensed, then it bolted away. I froze solid. It was one of those, couldn’t have moved if I wanted to type situations. The skin on my cheek prickled, like a kiss blown from Hell had found its target.

I want to say that’s when I woke up, for real though. That I opened my eyes, and the sun was shining, and I was perfectly all right except for a racing heartbeat. I want to say that’s when the nightmare ended. Unfortunately for me, that was just the beginning.

***

Photo by Leslie Saunders on Unsplash

***