Wondering Cow

Wondering Cow

By John R. Greenwood

Where are all the kids, wondered Miss Blossom? The barn and fields used to be brimming with rosy-cheeked girls and scabby-kneed boys during the summer. Did an alien spaceship drop down and slurp them up like August lemonade, whisking them off to a distant star? I miss the afternoon treats of alfalfa and clover dropping through the ceiling cracks as energy packed ten year-olds constructed castle-size forts in the hay-mow above. Did the never-ending kid-laughter and tall tales that once filled every inch of the farm, now disappear to some unknown land? I miss watching the boys in their white t-shirts and cut-off jeans wading in the creek chasing giggling girls with croaking bullfrogs and Garter snakes. Every hot August day used to be filled with the clickety clack of hay bailers and chugging tractors. Wagons heaped with sun-burned backs and baseball caps are now just a distant memory. All I see now is yellow jellyrolls of hay scattered across the country side with no one in sight. 

What’s happened Miss Blossom wondered? 

Is it something I said? 

Did I smell too bad? 

Doesn’t anyone enjoy the cool, refreshing nourishment of my milk anymore? 

Do sugar and caffeine packed drinks with names like Vein Splitter and Eye Popper really taste better than an ice cold glass of liquid nature? 

It saddens me. 

Bring my kids back! 

I want more running, jumping and smiling faces around me.The simple times we made so complex vanished into thin air when no one was looking. Too many precautions have turned my barn inside out Miss Blossom lamented. 

Maybe one day the children will return from Mars, or Venus, or wherever they've gone. 

For now I will simply replay the scene, over, and over, and over again…