Harold ambled down the old country road to the barbed-wire fence. He rested his arms on the wooden livestock gate and admired his cattle grazing on the prairie, an undulating yellow velvet that rolled over the Nebraskan hills. His old cow Bessie walked to the gate, and Harold scratched her between her horns.
This is what decades working in Silicon Valley, and good investments, have given me. I saved my ancestors’ ranch.
Something caught his eye. He looked up and gasped. An unidentifiable object in the sky exploded in a flash that washed over the prairie like a cosmic wave, then disappeared into the clouds. His engineer’s brain kicked into gear.
What was that? How did it move so fast?
The cattle stopped grazing. They stamped their hooves and roamed around in desperate circles, moaning and mooing in distress.
Bessie turned toward him, her eyes bugged out and anxious. She opened her mouth, panting.
“Greetings, Earthling. Where’s the restroom?”
Continue for the story behind the story….
© Copyright 2019—Present, Jenise Cook, All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
Published: 7 January 2020, Spillwords Press
First Published: The Friday Fix on Medium.com (RIP), 2019 July 12
Image Credit: WolfBlur on Pixabay.com
The Story Behind this Story
The idea came to me as I woke up one morning. My thoughts had the image of a rancher watching his cattle graze on the rolling hills of his family’s legacy ranch. A very calm, peaceful scene. Then, something shocking happened, which I crafted into the twist at the story’s end.
Where the twist came from, I can only hazard a guess, and I thank my unconscious for storing up this silly idea to delight readers.
William Pitts, one of the members of my online writing community, Scribophile, started a new Group to encourage us to write one short story each week, or revise a current story, and post it for critiques by the Group’s members. Then, submit the story to journals and see where the story finds a home.
Spillwords Press gave my humorous little tale a home. This online journal is visually beautiful, and the editors are very good at promoting authors via social media. You can “vote” on works by creating a WordPress login for free.
(If you already have a Spillwords login, you voted for my story, and you have works on Spillwords, let me know via Contact, as I’d love to read your works and vote for you. Thank you.)
Your Turn
Share your thoughts about this story in the Comments below.
Note: When you write a comment, I’ll respond. To view my response, make sure you get notified via email by selecting the checkbox for “Notify me via e-mail if anyone answers my comment.”
Thank you for reading. Come along on my adventures.
Select the image to join Jenise’s Journey!
