#606. Write...Edit...Publish: Moving On

The Armchair Squid seems determined to involve me in the blogging community.  He's already got the Cephalopod Coffeehouse I've been enjoying for months now, and now he's alerted me to this writing bloghop, Write...Edit...Publish (WEP).  This month's theme is moving on.  In a roundabout way, the following story follows it.  See if you can tell me how in the comments.  (814 words.)

Bessie

The cow who was not a cow, more like an extrapolation on the concept, sat there mooing.  

The cow's name was Bessie.  She was looking at a statue that reminded her a great deal of herself. 

This was appropriate because the statue was after all fashioned as a tribute to her.  The thing was, Bessie had a lousy memory.  Her contemporaries forgave her because they adored her.  It should be noted that the statue was not a religious totem, and that Bessie herself was never intended to see it.  There was an idea at one point that it would be unveiled at a surprise party with Bessie as the guest of honor, but then the goat who would one day become the Golden Goat, who was sometimes called Dillon, was recognized as an idiot, and those plans fell apart. 

Bessie had recently returned home after a long exile.  The fact of the exile was not peculiar to her, but rather a dictate of the...Dictator of the Galaxy, who was an extrapolation of a dog.  When the Dictator realized that many of the subjects of his great realm closely resembled creatures on an insignificant planet known as Earth, he'd ordered a large sampling of them to visit.  Such are the whimsies of fate that the Dictator himself ended up becoming an exile there, too.  Some blame Bessie, others the common mischief of Boo.  It is not wise to question matters of that regard. 

Standing not far away from Bessie was a human, an old farmer by the name of Kentucky Joe.  "Kentucky Joe" was not his real name, and is not even close to it.  He never even lived in Kentucky, but rather somewhere deep in Camden County, Missouri.  And speaking of the whimsies of fate, Kentucky Joe had never had a cow on his farm until he acquired Bessie. 

(As to how that occurred, this was the result of a bet the cow lost to Boo.) 

The old farmer was still having a difficult time adjusting to his new surroundings.  So far he had been forced to ride an absurd progression of animals, the last of which and most alarming was a horny toad, or so he called it.  The horny toad was in fact a tree frog, who had in turn lost a bet to a turtle.  The Dictator does not concern himself with gambling, because he himself has a weakness for roulette and the number 23. 

When she noticed Kentucky Joe looking at the statue, Bessie let a sigh loose.  Sooner or later she'd have to tell him something.  There were so few humans here.  Even the ones who visited usually left on some ridiculous quest dreamed up by the Dictator, who had the attention span of a gnat.  She wasn't at all concerned that Kentucky Joe would be drawn up in something like that, though.  As far as she could tell, the only thing he was capable of doing was initiating riding all kinds of weird creatures (as everyone knows, only horses and seahorses are supposed to be treated like that) and working on increasingly feverish projects.  Taken off his farm, the old farmer was just out of place, which is not what Bessie would ever say about herself.   

She was at home anywhere.  Except here.  Staring at her statue.  It was unnerving.  And Kentucky Joe only made it worse.  He kept looking back and forth between them, even though it was plainly evident that they were exactly alike.  The Dictator had a thing for statues.  She suspected that he was trying to send her a message, manipulating everyone into this exact moment.  Since she couldn't remember anything else about it, that seemed to be the logical assumption.  Maybe she was just being paranoid. 

The old farmer somehow came up with an idea to fashion a small scale replica of the statue.  He found some goat milk that had come from Dillon, and set about the task.  Except he soon had the idea to make it bigger, and began to bargain with the goat for more milk, which the goat did not appreciate.  Goats most appreciate leafy greens, and least appreciate when you stop giving leafy greens to them.  If you want your kids to eat leafy greens, have them visit a petting zoo, or a farm.  Kentucky Joe's farm is free for the taking, by the way, and it has goats, one of which is Dillon's kid (no kidding). 

Bessie was not beset with the appallingly lunatic spectacle of watching the old farmer carve a statue of a statue that was in her likeness, and she was no closer to learning why the original had been made in the first place.  Typically, the Dictator was on yet another of his mindless excursions. 

This was why, even though cows don't moo anywhere but on Earth, she did exactly that.  Again.