Jeff was hesitant to enter the barn; his hooves stepping forward with mild trepidation. He was mainly worried about what (he thought) he saw from atop the hill. Walking in under the barn’s hatched doors, the smell of wet hay and animal sweat filled the air. The sunlight illuminated the wooden walls, and in the back corner, Jeff spotted a being. His fears were confirmed - but the fear was quickly replaced with amazement: a friendly smile and wave. Toward the right-side back wall of one of the stables, sitting on a hay bale next to a pile of shovels, tools, and the firewood he was tasked with carrying, sat Jack.
"Jeff, dude! Over here!"
He was in awe. Unlike himself, and all the other “men” he had seen since his change, Jack was some kind of cow-human hybrid. He had the hind legs of a cow, but also the head of one. His upper body and hands were shaped like a human’s, but his skin was covered and colored entirely with black and white fur. A ropy cow tail lay curled up against his thigh on top of the hay bales on which he sat. Jeff could hear him breathe through his bovine nostrils; his snout, twitching away. His long, furry ears sticking out from his head, flicking away bugs and fleas. His big eyes, flickering in the dark. In the real world, Jack the cow was de-horned, and so was this “version”. Jack was an otherworldly being of nature.
This was a new level of insanity. The new Jack was some kind of miraculous amalgamation of the Chronivac’s alternate reality: between the half-human bulls and full animals, was an anthropomorphic cow creature. Other than the blue cloth he had tied around his waist, which to it were strapped tools and gadgets of various sorts, Jack was completely naked.
Jack, the animal.
The same Jack he knew as the bull he would give feed to; the same Jack that inspired the minotaurs and bull creatures in his role-playing games.
Jack.
“C’mon, dude, what’re you doin’ standin’ there? Git over here…” he shouted, waving, chewing on a few blades of hay or grass. Jeff walked cautiously to the pile of firewood, trying not to let the scene get to him. His mind was in a whirlwind; it was set ablaze with thoughts of memories. Memories of Jack. He jumped down from the pile, tail whipping through the still air. Smiling broadly, he pulled Jeff in for a hug, pressing his head into his furred chest.
“It’s been a while, man - missed you quite a bit! Farrah’s coming along nicely, and your grandpa’s gonna build a couple more stables in prep ‘fer next year. It’s gonna be great!”
It was like the memories were passing through his chest into Jeff’s head. Jack was what they called a ‘breeder’. The entire male population of the world may have been half-bull, but between the species ranking of human and animal were anthropomorphic cattle like Jack, who were limited in population but were great at… well, “managing” farms. And yes, that meant “managing” cow populations. Cows like Farrah, one of his grandfather’s newer possessions. She was pregnant, no doubt, with a couple of Jack’s children. His grandpa had used Jack to sire Farrah’s offspring, and among the wash of memories entering Jeff’s mind, things that Jack the cow had done in real life had somehow transferred over to this reality. If there were no need for bulls, then there had to be some way to procreate. The mish-mash of it all shouldn’t have made sense, but… this was how it was.
Jeff had become “friends” with Jack, who was now 22, but had been hired by his grandfather six years prior when he was 17. This was around the age that anthropomorphic bulls became of good use to the farming communities. That was six years - interestingly, the same number of years old that Jack was in real life: six. This 22-year old brute, as he were now, was much taller than Jeff, and built like a strong adult male. Just like the kind you see shirtless in sport magazines. The view he was getting at the moment reassured this fact.
Jack finally let go of Jeff, but with eyes staring down. “What kind of hug was that?!?”
Jeff's face was frozen with a distilled mix of fear and curiosity.
“Well, whatever. Your dad’s gonna be a while with ol’ Clark. That shower head is just part of the problem; that entire bathroom needs an overhaul. Trust me.”
Jack thumbed over to the firewood pile, and snorted loudly.
“We got some time to work on that wood later. C’mon… let me show ya something…”
Tail swishing with interest, Jack started walking to the other end of the barn, talking loudly as Jeff followed. He was extremely anxious; the little bug in his mind told him that this was getting way too out of hand; that he was getting in way too deep.
But yet… Jack fascinated him. Something deep inside Jeff was stirring with excitement, and he wanted to follow and see how Jack interacted with the world.
“You remember that ‘ol tire swing by the pond?”
On the many-acres wide property of his grandpa’s farm, Jeff’s dad had built him a tire swing under a giant willow tree. This willow tree, seemingly decades old, overlooked a small pond. And across the pond was a small forest which marked the end of the property. But it had been many great years since he had used it, and enough wind storms and snow-laden winter years had all but destroyed the tire. It was a reflective symbol of times and memories from his past. Good memories, and sad ones, too. He’d sometimes come here to get away from the petty problems that childhood often rendered. These were “real” memories, though, from his normal life. This was not his normal life.
Jack stopped at the top of the hill, and pointed down to the pond. “Yo - check it out! Fixed it up. New tire.”
Sure enough, there was a new tire hanging from a branch higher up on the tree. It looked to be a used tire from one of the tractors; it was much bigger than the one from before. He turned to Jack, who was chewing on another blade of grass. “Well… what’re you waitin’ for?”
Comfort and warmth filled Jeff’s senses. Instead of feeling worried or afraid about what the Chronivac had done to him and the world, at that moment he felt…compassion, and thankfulness; fraternity. Jeff didn’t have any brothers, but there was always Jack. He was the closest thing he had to an older brother. This sentiment, this memory - it came from this alternative world, but it felt just as real.
At his behest, Jeff ran down to the pond (well, trotted down - he hadn’t really gotten running down yet with the hooves and all), and sat his bovine butt on the tire. It was big enough to fit him, despite being 16 years old. He began to swing, freely, breathing in the scent of the water. For a short moment, Jeff’s mind rested. The sounds of the outside world were all that he heard. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, with no warning at all, Jack came sprinting up from behind and pushed Jeff hard over the pond! Unbalanced, he fell off and into the mucky pond - shirt still on and all.
Jack broke out in laughter, hands covering his muzzle. “Hahahaha… oh shucks, I just had to, I’m sorry! Hold on, I’m coming in for ‘ya...”
Just as Jeff’s head popped up above the water, he witnessed, for the first time in human history, something that the young and old alike could only describe as… The Flying Cow.
“Cannonbaaaaaaaaall!!!”
SPLASH.
“Gah!”
The water poured over Jeff’s head, as he spit out some kind of grassy algae-muck-crap from his mouth and attempted to swim up to shore. If walking around with hooves wasn’t enough of a challenge, figuring out how swimming worked with hooves was an entirely different experience.
Jack popped up above the waves, still laughing and pouting a little as he watched Jeff struggle to climb out. “Oh, come on! The water’s not that bad…let’s swim for a while!”
He turned around to see Jack, smiling, swishing around with arms and hands, trying to stand in shoulder-deep water. But the smile quickly turned into some kind of concerned expression; it was difficult to tell on the face of a cow, but Jeff knew he had seen it before.
“What’s wrong, dude? You’ve been awfully quiet…”
Jeff shook his head and tried to wave it off. “Nothing. Just… didn’t wanna get wet.” He took off his own shirt to ring it out.
“Nahhhhhh…” he immediately blared, “Something’s wrong, or you’re not feeling well. Gimme just a sec…”
Well, indeed, something was wrong, but the circumstances of it all were too far beyond the comprehension of a simple-minded cow-man. This universe, as it seemed, was very structured and planned; non-complex and non-confrontational. How do you - why would he explain what he had done with the Chronivac? What goal would that accomplish? Or, better yet, whatever you would consider Jack, as a person, it just has no business in... Uggh! God… although Jeff was certain that it was best to wave this off and just get that firewood taken care of, the real sense of brotherhood and camaraderie flared up again inside. He could tell Jack anything and he would listen, remember? C’mon Jeff… why are you pushing your thoughts away?
“Hey!”
His conundrums were interrupted by Jack, who was now sitting beside him on the ground next to the lake. His silver hooves glistened in the sunlight, and he was absolutely dripping wet from head to toe, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“What’s on your mind, dude?”
He didn’t want to respond, but he found himself saying, “It’s… hard to explain…”
“What?”
“...and not really something that I should explain,” Jeff inserted, trying to recover.
“Oh, well… your father’s not nearby. Is it about him?”
Jeff shook his head. “No. I… I just wanna go take care of the firewood!”
“C’mon, Jeff, don’t you trust me?”
This was getting increasingly difficult to deal with. He could try and tell Jack what he had done, or he could get up and walk to the barn, hoping that the conversation would just end. Or, something else?! What should he do?