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Summary

A cow experiences a moment of amazement and wonder as a flock of sparrows suddenly surrounds her in a brown, feathered cloud, a phenomenon that is new and unprecedented in her experience.

Abstract

In "Sparrow Cloud," a narrative by Wolfstuff, a single cow's routine grazing is disrupted when a swarm of sparrows erupts around her, enveloping her in a cloud of feathers. This event, lasting only four of the cow's heartbeats, leaves her in a state of astonishment, unable to find any similar occurrences in her memory. As the sparrows ascend and disperse, the cow attempts to process the extraordinary event, which stands in stark contrast to her usual, unvarying life governed by the instinctual routines dictated by nature. The experience, while fleeting, is a moment of wonder that briefly transcends the cow's typical existence of eating and rumination.

Opinions

  • The cow's reaction to the sparrow cloud is characterized by amazement, suggesting a capacity for surprise and perhaps a richer inner life than typically attributed to cows.
  • The narrative implies a contrast between the cow's usual, repetitive life and the novelty of the sparrow cloud, highlighting the potential for unexpected events to break the monotony of daily existence.
  • The cow's initial instinct to alert others hints at a sense of community and shared experience among the cows, although this is quickly overshadowed by the singularity of her experience.
  • The description of the sparrow cloud as "unnatural though quite natural" reflects on the wonders of the natural world, which can be both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time.
  • The cow's experience, while profound, is transient, and life quickly returns to normal, suggesting the fleeting nature of wonder and the resilience of routine.

Sparrow Cloud

Feathered Bovine Thoughts

Cow in sparrow cloud Brown, feathered bovine thoughts

But this one cow was not, as Warren put it, unamazed; no, this cow was very much amazed and would remain amazed for a full four bovine heart beats, for in the narrow space between two leisurely, grass-crunching, masticating, half-circular jaw-movements the brown cloud of sparrows erupted from the ground all around her and in an instant had feather-misted her.

From where, or how, she hadn’t a clue, but while it lasted (four bovine heart beats), this unnatural though quite natural phenomenon, she was all attention and I-don’t-believe-this.

Bovine memory was scrambling in- and downward to find earlier, similar phenomena, some that she had since chewed and ruminated and digested and on some level now understood, but bovine memory came up empty handed, empty footed, and empty hearted. This was all brilliantly new and all unprecedented and all impossible and all around her, right now.

She thought to alert the others, scattered across the wide field, but she could see none of them through the brown, feathery cloud that still woosh, woosh, wooshed with the beating of a thousand pairs of sparrow wings all around her.

And then came the third bovine heart beat and the cloud was thinning as the sparrows reached for altitude, and here came the fourth bovine heart beat and gone was the cloud, and there, all around her, at various distances, she could again see her brothers and sisters and mothers (though no fathers), some looking her way with mild astonishment and tempered curiosity: what was that? did I see that?

Which was the very same questions posed by the now less and less amazed cow who looked up at the diminishing and scattering cloud that dotted the sky and no longer pecked the earth around her for worms and other sparrow-food.

And then her chewing started up again from where it had left off four bovine heart beats ago, and then she looked down at the grass that spread before and around her feet and selected the next little green bundle to rip loose from its siblings to be tongued and teethed and chewed and chewed and swallowed and then regurgitated and chewed and chewed and chewed some more and swallowed again all according to the rules laid down by the Big Cow in the sky for her and her kind.

Here and now, there was no sparrow cloud, not even as memory.

Here and now: there’s a juicy bit. Neck and lips and teeth coordinate in retrieving another grassy mouthful.

© Wolfstuff

Sparrows
Cows
Bovine Thoughts
Sparrow Cloud
Attention Span
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