Untitled Tale

The Beginning

June 1st 2900

I wake up and eat a large breakfast. If this was early summer, the sun would be up too, but slowly, the mornings are turning darker. I feed my dog, Justine, and have her herd a female cow into the barn for milking, and the process is repeated through all twenty of them. Two have large bite marks on their hind legs which are still healing. I spread ointment onto them to keep infection out, although the holes should be dried up and scarred over by now. Mary, an older cow, has stopped having calves, and is slowly running dry.

My father had wanted to send her into the butchers but my mother wanted to let her die first, because this was the first cow she helped the birth of. My father agreed, but my mother now feels regret for causing him grief on his last day alive. I begin to wonder if it’s really been six months, I’ve had the length of time straight, but I question it each day.

It’s noon and I’m feeding the pigs. We’ve found that apples and steak together brings out more muscular and meatier pigs. It’s taken an hour, so I run to our private apple tree for lunch. We have this tree because long meals during the day in summer is a waste of good time.

Towards the afternoon, as the shadows on everything begin to stretch, the chickens eggs are taken, and our paradise birds are cared for. My mother loves those birds, so she breeds and raises them for quite the profit. It’s up to me to feed them, but gets harder when one is nesting. The last of my chores are done, so I run my horse and dog into the sheep field. There I can woot and scream, feel alive, and own the world. I walk my horse, Joey, back home and give her food and water. Justine, my dog, looks at me and begs until I give her food. Then my mother and I eat dinner. Dinner has gotten quiet, and since my father died, my mother only cooks, though for some reason, she won’t make apple oatmeal. She used to milk the cows and tend the crops, but since the crops don’t need tending and I’ve been milking, she just cooks. She is out sometimes caring for or picking the crops, but has spent a lot of her days in the house staring blankly off into space. She used to have rants at the dinner table talking about the evil things our neighbor, George, must be up to. She has always had suspicions about that man, but I’ve never had a reason to dislike him. Tonight, the dinner table remains silent, but we eat a creamy potato stew my mom has made. The night draws near, so I read my book, and go to sleep. The morning will come early, and the night is never long enough. Tomorrow is the horse competition, so mom has to tend the farm alone for the first time since my father died.