Matthew Stokoe

“The voice called his name again and it came through a lot of throat. Steven twisted quickly on his stool.
Just a white wall and, down near the floor, the ventilation grille. Then movement behind the grille and Steven was on his knees, peering through it, pressing his face against the mesh. In there, in the shadows beyond the spill of light from the hall, the outline of an anvil-shaped head swayed gently.
Two eyes blinked limpidly, insolent in their slowness. A dark mass moved forward into the light.
“That Cripps man is going to fuck you up, dude.”
It was a cow. Most of the body was below floor level but Steven could tell it was a full grown animal. A sienna Guernsey. He looked closely at the flawless sandy curves of forehead and cheek, at the chocolate darkening of the mouth and nostrils, at the badger rings around the eyes. For an absurd second he thought that if he looked hard enough at it the thing might phase back into his head and disappear.
But it was real and it stayed.
“What … ?”
“Yeah, I’m a cow, man. Touch me.”
Steven stuck his fingers through the grille. The cow was a cow, warm and solid.”
― Matthew Stokoe, Cows