ghost cows: a bedtime story
last night I was on a train and I couldn’t sleep, so I just sat there and stared out of the window, and it was dark, but I could tell where were the trees and where was the sky (and I saw a shooting star!) and where were the fields and occasional houses.
and then I saw something I couldn’t identify, some ghostly white silhouettes scattered about a small field, and it passed by very quickly, and my insomniac brain latched onto the image and started telling me a story about ghost cows.
ghost cows, my brain said, can only be seen grazing from dusk till dawn, which makes it rather difficult for the farmers to keep them sustained, as summer nights tend to be very short. and, of course, ghost cows cannot eat regular grass, it has to be ghost grass, so they can be grazed only in the fields where all the grass has been mown.
in late spring, when all the fields are green and the grass hasn’t grown enough for it to be cut, ghost cows feed on some ghost hay (regular hay that’s been left in the rain and snow to rot), carefully stored in special ghost barns (regular barns that were burned down almost entirely)
winter is the best season for the ghost cows, as they prefer cooler temperatures, and also have lots of delicious grazing options, including ghost wheat and a variety of ghost garden vegetables and flowers.
ghost cows cannot be milked, but every ghost cow owner has a special jar made of moon glass that is left on the porch at night and is full of ghost milk every morning. ghost milk isn’t suitable for drinking, but a single drop of it makes regular milk turn sour in an instant, and farmers find it extremely handy for fermenting a special kind of cheese, known as the Moon Cheese (some people believe that it is the same kind of cheese the Moon is made of, but scientists haven’t found any evidence supporting this hypothesis so far)
two drops of ghost milk taken with a glass of warm wine is a perfect remedy for nightmares and sleepwalking.
ghost calves are born in the middle of winter, usually a couple of days around winter solstice. they are very adorable and playful creatures and make perfect playmates for insomniac children. it is a known fact that those children grow up to be ghost cow shepherds, so they are treated with respect according to their high social status right from the moment they become insomniac.
August 13 is a National Ghost Cow day in these parts, and it is celebrated throughout the country with ghost bonfires, ghost dancing and other sorts of popular entertainment.
