23 Cows Are Missing

23 Cows Are Missing.

Those were the words of Grandpa Albert in that strange day. He had always been bad mannered, shouting at everyone with his wooden cane up high. It really didn't help that he was hard of hearing and used glasses as big as the bottom part of a wine bottle. It was your typical rancher, with a little more screws loose.

I was just a small child when I came to visit him at the farm. Unbeknown to what I would find, I arrived with my backpack almost falling from my shoulders under the enourmous weight of clothes (enough for a small army) and all kinds of pills that mom had packed for me. There, in the middle of nowhere, a broad-shouldered guy had been waiting for me at the entrance. Uncle Phil had always been the gentleman type, despite his lack of higher education and his brawny appearance.

"Come on,! You know Grandpa Albert is waiting for you inside. Go! Go!" he said, almost as if he had a more important business to attend to rather than help a scrawny kid falling under the weight of his undies.

It was a rather long walk from the gates to the front proch. He was already there, with his vigilant - almost non-working- eye and his shotgun at his side. When I finally met him, he exploded in joy, shouting at the sky with his arms up in the air and ready to give a bone-crushing hug that could kill a small animal. Feeling a bit disoriented from the lack of oxygen, I walked inside the house to appreciate your typical deer head in the wall, old books and magazines making an effort to not fall apart and all types of weird baroque furniture.

"Well, ma' little grandson, you can take all the time you want to unpack. After you are done you can always walk around a bit, but beee careeeful...You can never know what you can find. Something weird is goin' on as of right now".

I knew he was a little "eccentric" ,as mom put it, but I never knew it was so bad. At first, I thought he had finally gone crazy after living away from civilization, but when the night came, that is when it all started to make sense.

***

I woke up scared. If I had to guess, it was midnight. The moon light entered through the small window in the attic (now, my room). My small bed had started shaking a bit. At first, I thought it was just my just-woken-up mind tricking me, but it couldn't be farther from the truth. The bed started to shake even more, and elevate above the floor. And it wasn't just the bed, it was all my stuff too! I couldn't believe my eyes. I shouted to get Grandpa Albert's attention, but it was futile: he must had been sound sleep.

And then, instantaneously, the phenomenon ceased entirely. I guess it isn't necessary to say I pissed my bed, and couldn't sleep for the rest of the night.

***

"Grandpa, Grandpa! It's real. Something weird is going on!" I said the next morning.

"I told ya' boy! I told ya! What did you see?"

"Well, I didn't really see anything, but..but...some weird stuff happened...and the bed started to float..."

"Shhh..don't say no more. They could be listening right now! This time they robbed me 11 cows, what will be next, huh? Here's what we are gonna do: we are gonna caught these sons of a gun red handed! We will stay up all night. They ain't gonna know what hit 'em"

***

The tension was raising up. A cold breeze struck the front porch. Grandpa and I, both covered in blankets waited for the arrival of the invisible robbers or whatever they were. It was almost midnight, again. Just like the night before, the furniture started to shake a bit. Then, a lot more than before, almost as if a major earthquake had struck the farm.

"They are here, Grandpa! Grab your gun! Let's go!"

"They are not gonna get away so easily now! Let's see if they can take some bullets"

We ran to the barn, where the cows were stolen, but when we got there I saw the weirdest thing I had seen in my life. It was a cow, walking in two feet, standing up straight. There, shaking profusely alongside my Grandpa, I saw how another cow, also standing up straight, descended from a brightly lit tall vehicle. It had a weird shape, like a small zeppelin. A small platform descended from what seemed to be the entrance. The cows (our normal-walking cows) walked in a straight line, direct to the platform. One by one, they were disappearing inside the vehicle.

"Mooo" said one of the weird cows, indicating his colleague of something. The entrance closed, and the vehicle departed.

We were so mesmerized by the experiencie, we couldn't even do anything. It seemed like our muscles had shut off completely. The shotgun fell to the ground and so we did shortly after, completely unconscious.

***

When we woke up the next morning, apart from the serious back pain, we were still shocked by the experience.

"Grandpa, what if the weird cows come back?"

"Weird cows? You mean the 2 meter robbers? I really hope not, they were so freakishly tall I couldn't even stand a chance. That's why you stayed still too, right? And, come to think of it, why did we woke up outside the house? Ha ha, we were up so late we fell asleep!"

That's when I realized we didn't see the same thing after all. Later, that same day, Grandpa went to the barn to check the cattle. He seemed weirdly well composed and collected. That's when I heard him yell at the top of his lungs:

"Goddamnit! Now,

23 Cows Are Missing"

Word Count: 998