When the cows go home

 You walk out of the grocery store one day and discover that the streets are full of cows on bicycles. What’s even weirder is that you’re the only one who finds this odd. What is going on? -Source

A big bag of salt and two pounds of carrots in my backpack, I exited the convenience store. I never liked the place, it was musty and smelled like dirty feet for as long as I could remember. On that warm Saturday morning, the store was freezing, I wanted the warm nourishing Sun on my hand, that lifegiving life rejuvenating me from what felt like a disappointing dungeonlike hell.

There were a lot of bikes around, I was thankful for that. People were abandoning their cars, with their commutes nonexistent now, and taking bikes to groceries or...whatever it is that people did on Saturday mornings. I looked at one of the bikers more closely. It...was...strange. Four-legged large animal with a large mouth and an extensive udder riding the bike. I couldn't have been dreaming. I cleared my eyes, and looked around. Every one of those bikes ridden by a cow. If they were costumes, they were very elaborae, anatomically correct, and...possibly, impossibly expensive because their tails were quite active. It seemed like they were real cows, riding real bicycles in real life. What had happened when I was gone?

I look at a passerby, a human being thankfully, and shout at him. Do you see this, I yell pointing at the bikes. All those bikes, and the riders! He yells back, yeah, isn't it amazing, apparently it's one of the anti-cancer organizations organizing the bikeride, all the proceeds go to cancer research apparently. Amazing job they're doing! No, I said, I meant...they're cows...riding the bicycles...with their...four feet, you see nothing wrong with that? The man looked at me strangely, hey there man, he said, where've you been anybody can ride bikes these days grandpa, he said, snorting and walked away.

I went to the nearby bakery that I visited every day, I asked the girl on the counter -- I'd known her for three years -- what the deal was with the cows biking around and if nobody thought it was weird. Yeah I guess it's weird, she said, I haven't seen that many bicyclists at the same time I'm actually really happy that everybody is biking now, this is going to make the traffic on the highway so much better now. I know it sucks for he environment but hey, I ain't gonna be hurting my knees and thigh just to go to my favourite steak restaurant, you know what I'm saying?!

"Wait, Steak," I say, my eyes narrowed, my lips tightened. "What kind...of steaks?" I ask her with great deliberation, stressing on every word.

She stared at me, her eyes wide open. "Well of course," she starts, and then pauses. She starts the sentence and pauses again. Her eyes blank out. "Of course vegan steaks hahahaha, fooled yaa, what did you think I was gonna say, you don't think I'm ONE of those people are you," she says, smirking. Hahahaha I say, laughing a rather unconmfortable unconvincing laugh, of course not, but you never know. I was testing and you win, hahaha, I say.

Something is up, with this girl, with everyone else, and with the goddamn cows, I thought. And I was going to get to the end of it.