Milking Time

Source

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Long before dawn the rooster crowed. They turned on lights, brewed coffee, yawned, got dressed and went out. Wrapped in heavy trousers, shirts with rolled up sleeves, and rubber boots, they walked under the moonlight.

They opened the barbed-wire door; used to them, they ignored the birds singing at night and the rumor of beasts moving in the pasture. Pablo released a black chimó spittle on the dry dung-filled ground and walked lazily to the corral. Manuel took buckets, rope and a small bench out of the shed, stretched his stiff muscles, getting ready to spend endless hours milking hunched over.

Manuel, there's a cow lying there. Paul said.

Leave her alone and bring the others, when the light is good, we'll see what happens to her.

Milking began, the milk filled the first bucket, the second and the third with warm murmurs. Cow milked, cow loose with her calf. When milking finished, one calf was missing.

Still dark, they went to examine the cow lying down. It breathed fast, superficially, badly. Eyes lost, extinguished, mooing pitiful and trembling muscles. Vitamins and antibiotics were injected, and they could do no more, they let it rest.

For me it was a snake bite, said Manuel.

Surely it was a mapanare.

It died at dawn. They found an oozing wound on the bruised udder. They called the boss and put up with his insults. Annoyed at the prospect of a long day wandering through the pastures, they saddled the horses and entered the pasture, following the erratic tracks of the lost calf.

The master arrived at noon, waiting for them sitting between flies and the dead cow. He waited a long time, but they never returned.

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This is the translation of a micro story written for the MicroTerror256 contest organized by @trenz. In it, participants must write a horror story based on an assigned topic in a maximum of 256 words, this time the topic was "The Transformation".

Unfortunately, translations from Spanish to English are impossible using the exact same number of words so that condition is not fulfilled here. Despite that, I thought it was a good idea to translate it and give you a little look at the way of life of Venezuelan countrymen. I hope you enjoy it.

By the way, there are two exotic words, so I leave you a little glossary:

Chimó: Dense, dark brown, almost black paste prepared from tobacco that is very common in the Venezuelan countryside. With a spicy flavor it is consumed introducing a small portion in the mouth leaving it to be diluted with the saliva. It is thought to be useful as a vermin repellent among other uses.

Mapanare: Very aggressive venomous snake of potentially fatal bite. 

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Publicado desde mi blog con SteemPress : http://jcalero.vornix.blog/2018/10/19/milking-time/

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