The heat from the Hungry Man TV dinner had Kimberly Stanley’s bare thighs sweaty. She wore only her bra and underwear where she sat in the green corduroy recliner that she and her ex-husband had picked out more than a decade ago. On the 40-inch Samsung flat screen television was Clarice. Beyond the big bay window of her quiet home the wind whistled by, spinning snow in cyclones. The moon was high and had the busy night looking blue. Blue as Kimberly felt.
She’d come home from a day of inoculating horses, wet and cold and ravenous. Hence sitting in her underwear, eating a supper that took her less than five minutes to prepare.
Kimberly had lived alone the last six years, after her husband left her for a younger woman a few days before her forty-third birthday. It was a slim consolation, a consolation nonetheless, but that relationship had failed as well. Phil, her ex, was also lonely and a bit miserable, last she’d heard. And she’d heard enough. More than she cared to.
He’d remained in the same county when he moved, renting a farm and buying himself a small head of cattle. Kimberly Stanley was Dr. Kimberly Stanley, the only veterinarian for about forty miles. Their contact was unavoidable though she kept as much distance as she could without affirming the public opinion that he’d left her after she’d gone sour, had become a bitch. No doubt Phil was the one to spread these rumors, but she had no way to prove it, and everybody loved Phil. It was either pick up and move her life and business elsewhere or get along.
Get along she would.
She stabbed the chunk of so-called Salisbury steak and bit from the edge. The woman playing Agent Starling was interviewing a criminal and doing a really fantastic job of mimicking Jodie Foster’s voice and mannerisms from the classic, Silence of the Lambs.
“That’s one I should watch again,” she said, and at the sound of her voice, Pippa, her diabetic old cat, lifted her head. “I’ll get your dinner once I’m done mine.” All that was left of Kimberly’s Hungry Man was the mysterious red blob of dessert.
Finished, she paused the show and kicked the chair down. She bussed her tray and empty milk glass to the kitchen. The cat food bowl was in the laundry alcove with the water dish and litter pan. The linoleum back there was coming up, rising and falling like gentle sea waves. Phil had had big plans of laying down interlocking laminate that looked like hardwood. Like most things, he never got around to it.
Pippa fed, Kimberly went to the master bathroom with its two sinks, toilet, and full-size tub. She could leave just about all her personal care items on the counter and it would never feel cluttered—though she never did, everything had its place and only the toothpaste, floss, and toothbrush with charger base had reserved space on the counter. The other bathroom, downstairs—toilet, sink, and shower stall—were really only used when Kimberly was too filthy from work or had to pee while watching TV.
The downstairs bathroom was like most of the house: used, though unnecessarily so. Three bedrooms; rooms she’d planned to fill with kids. Phil had put it off and put it off. At thirty-nine, she’d gone to discuss options with a specialist only to discover she was infertile: “Possibly due to that past untreated infirmity.” The doc’ was saying without saying STD.
Phil had given her chlamydia when they’d first begun dating. She’d thought it was cramps and he thought nothing. Nine months later, she’d gone in for a physical and came away with news. He hadn’t cheated, wasn’t the type, but had slept with girls plenty before they’d begun dating. He had no symptoms that registered as problems, was in fact an optimal vessel for the disease.
Kimberly ran the shower. The rusty stainless-steel caddy hung suction-cupped to the rear wall had room for shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, and then some; also had four hooks. She filled them: loofa, pumice on a rope, scissors, and a mirror on a ring. She thought about how easily she would’ve made room. In that other life, maybe she’d climb into the shower after a hard day and there’d be no hot water, and even that was a welcome notion, given what it suggested. After Phil left, she wasn’t interested in dating, wasn’t sure she was even straight anymore. Men had come to disgust her, physically. She never showed it but couldn’t deny the repulsion existed beyond her choosing.
The hot, hot water shed away the filth and cold of the long day and she quieted her mind to the world and life and everything that had gone wayward from her missed opportunities in the years gone by. She opened her mouth and let the shower spray against her tongue.
As she dried, Lily Allen’s voice sang distantly, and Kimberly hoped she was imagining it. She opened the door and the wonderful steam escaped. Lily Allen began anew: “Fuck you, fuck you very, very much.” Kimberly sighed. The ringtone she’d assigned to Phil’s contacts.
She closed the door and took her time. Faintly, the song started over and she huffed. It had to be about one of the cattle. Naked, she raced downstairs to her phone.
“Yeah?” she said.
“Hey, Kim…got a pregnant girl, just a tail poking out. Breach, I think. She’s not looking too good, can you come?” Phil said.
That ‘Hey, Kim,’ he’d said it for the first time a moment after they’d been introduced at a keg party in a field during her first weekend home from university, hours before she’d become totally smitten by the young man with grand ideas and lofty goals, weeks before he’d give her chlamydia, years before they’d wed, two decades before he’d leave her with an empty home and a permanent sneer.
“Yeah,” she said. “Be there soon as I can.”
“Thanks so—”
Kimberly hung up, cutting him off.
—
Phil’s rental barn was well over 100 years old. The basement featured whitewashed walls of cement poured over rocks, steep stairs of ancient softwood boards, rusty pen bars, a crumbling concrete floor, and poor lighting—each bulb yellowed by airborne animal waste. Everything about it was commonplace for a small operation in her county. She stepped down to the pens with her bag, wearing her secondary set of winterized coveralls. Her boots were still damp.
Within the pen, next to the pregnant heifer lying on her side, looking big enough to burst, was Phil. His exhalations and the exhalations of the animal bundled into steam clouds that rose quickly to the cob-webby ceiling.
Kimberly pulled a pair of disposable plastic gloves from her pocket and slipped them on, rolled them up like condoms. They reached to her armpits. Phil waved to her. She sighed as she bent for her bag. She dropped it over the pen bars and climbed in after it.
“Hey, Kim,” Phil said.
Kimberly knelt without word and lifted the heifer’s tail. There, a short way below, was a skinny little tail tip. She groaned. “She uppity?”
“No,” Phil said. His typical charm was gone, his tone was all worry.
The heifer was panting, seemingly defeated and accepting of the situation; what little she could possibly understand. She didn’t even move when Kimberly pulled the tail higher and reached her hand into the heifer. Hot, hot inside. The calf’s rear legs were bent forward in a full breach.
“How’s she feel?”
Kimberly ignored him, reefing against the skinny little legs. The trick was to get them pointed back and lined up with the exit. She and Phil could pull the calf the rest of the way if it didn’t begin to slide; it might already be dead. Still, careful was key. Phil was like most farmers she knew, waiting until the last possible minute to call for help when that help wasn’t coming free of charge.
“Think you can get the calf out okay?”
Kimberly again ignored him. “How long she been lying here?”
“I don’t know. At least three hours, but even then, she was more sitting. Like normal sitting,” Phil said, speaking quickly as if to clear away any fault on his part.
Kimberly reached her second arm into the heifer. The beast gave a gentle kick; nothing violent or harried. With two hands on the legs, she started making headway. Despite the cold, she was sopping with sweat. Phil kept on talking, as was his way, and she kept on ignoring him, as had become her way. Once one slimy leg came free, she had more space.
“Get a blanket in case it’s breathing,” she said as she dug around for the other leg still inside the heifer. She had a bit of an advantage over many of the men she gone to vet school with. Her arms were thin and her hands were small, though strong. It took far less effort and no damage to get both arms inside.
Phil came back with a blood-stained horse quilt. It would do to keep the animal warm, if it was alive. Giving birth to a dead animal or animals was not uncommon on farms.
“How’s it going?”
Kimberly expected he wanted to suggest he try but knew better. She had it anyway, was just about to…the little leg sprung out the same moment both her arms slipped free. She fell back into the frozen manure and the heifer really started pushing and rose to her forelegs and rear knees. A gooey, furry calf passed through the canal and to the floor with a steamy splash.
“Is it breathing?”
Kimberly pulled off a glove and stuck her hand in the calf’s mouth. It began to suckle, gently. Kimberly huffed out a breath and checked her watch after peeling away the second nasty glove.
“Seems okay,” she said and got to her feet. “Might as well do the shots while I’m here.”
Phil followed her as far as the pen bars. “Hey, Kim, so, uh, money’s kind of tight right now, so maybe hold off.”
She closed her eyes. The calf needed shots whether this deadbeat had the money for them or not. She bent and opened her bag. Two vials, one syringe, and two needle heads—with cattle, unlike with people, reusing needles was the norm.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Phil said, eyes on his dirty boots, after they’d stepped out of the barn.
“You can pay me.”
“I really can’t. All my money’s tied up in the cattle.”
Kimberly guessed this was a half-truth. Probably he had money tied up in something even riskier than smalltime farming, but the scheme was too dumb to mention.
“I can honestly say I wish I’d never met you.”
“Ah, Kim, don’t say that. We loved each other once. I don’t see how you can be so cold.”
She huffed a chest full of hot air that rose on the night sky until it disappeared. She reached her Jeep and jerked the key in the ignition. She muttered angrily as she drove and had to swipe at condensation on the windshield while the heater fought to warm up. She reached her laneway, parked, and looked up at her empty home.
Minutes mounted. The heater began pumping enough that she was finally comfortable. That dark, dark home was because of Phil. She was out and filthy, filthy because of Phil. And she hadn’t even gotten paid.
“Fuck that fucking fuck!”
She shook the steering wheel, her throat sore from screaming. She put the Jeep into gear and wheeled around the U of her laneway. Before she knew exactly what she’d planned, she was back in the basement of Phil’s barn, stealing a fresh calf from its weakened mother. Phil didn’t come out and she didn’t give him much time to do so. Calf in the cargo hold, Kimberly’s headlights cut through the blustery night. She laughed at high volume. Not in humor, but in something else, an undefinable state of being.
At home, Pippi, grew wide-eyed at the sight of the calf and bolted up the stairs. Kimberly kicked the door closed behind her and set the wrapped calf on the kitchen floor.
“You’re a dirty birdie and so am I,” she said, that overwrought laughter softening the edges of her words. “What’s say I take a shower and then I give you a wash?”
She stepped into the small bathroom and ran the water. The heavy denim layers came away and puddled at her tired feet. Into the shower stall, she washed quickly and efficiently. She grabbed her towel before opening the smokey sliding plastic partition.
“Oh, I guess this is just a kidnapping. If he pays, you can go back to your—” The words lodged in her throat when she slid open the partition. The cow was gone. Wearing the horse quilt like a shawl was a girl, maybe three or four, maybe a little older.
“Hi,” the girl said.
Kimberly fainted dead away and nailed her head on the sink as she fell forward, out of the shower stall. She came to in the little girl’s lap, the little girl brushing Kimberly’s hair with her fingers. The girl no longer looked three.
“Are you okay?”
Kimberly swallowed, nodded. This little girl looked just like Kimberly had when she was seven or eight. Uncannily so.
“Are you sleepy?”
Kimberly said nothing to this, though she was indeed sleepy, very sleepy. So sleepy that she decided she must be dreaming. She jerked away from the little girl’s lap and pushed to her feet. She was woozy and weak. The goose egg forming on her forehead was tender beneath her fingers.
“I think it’s bedtime,” she said and turned from the little girl and headed for the stairs. The little girl followed her, which was okay because she had to be imagining her.
In her bedroom, she flicked the light switch and sighed in relief when the little girl wasn’t reflected in the mirror. Kimberly stepped closer to the mirror and squinted. Wrinkles cut shadows around her eyes and mouth where they’d only been hues before. Her dark hair had gone mostly grey. Her bare breasts sagged almost to her bellybutton.
The little girl stepped out from directly behind her. She was naked still and growing older. She had little nubbin breasts now and fat had rounded out her face and shoulders. Kimberly shook her head, not accepting this, and climbed into bed. The little girl followed her.
“I hope your head feels better tomorrow,” the little girl said.
Kimberly pretended to sleep until it became reality.
—
The aches were as painful as they’d ever been and she had to pee so bad she could almost taste it. After two blinks fully awake, she recalled stealing the calf and the girl appearing. She rolled over to look. The bed next to her was empty.
Because of course it was.
She pushed from the bed and shuffled into the main bathroom, rubbing her foggy eyes as she went. She reached the double sinks and the long mirror and stopped. Piss dribbled down her legs, onto the floor. She was old, old. Retired and afraid of youths old. A moan escaped her and four teeth fell from her mouth, pinging against the sink before disappearing down the drain.
“Hey.”
Kimberly turned. It was her, as a teenager. Dear God, what was happening?
“Oops, you’ve made a mess. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Kimberly tried to swallow but found her throat dry and crackly as onion skin. She bent to drink from the faucet, her back and legs screaming at the strain of it. It took a great deal of effort to push herself straight. She peeked out through the door. The teenager was gone.
She shuffled out and into the hallway. The banister had never been so necessary. She touched her couch as she considered reaching for the back of the recliner. Decided against it. The TV was on, Clarice, paused. Where was Pippi?
“Pippi?” Kimberly said, her voice coming out like the tearing of paper.
The recliner spun on its base. “Who’s Pippi?”
“My cat,” Kimberly said to the girl—Kimberly when she was Kim at about eighteen-years-old.
“Cat?”
Kimberly began to swoon, her head rocking, gaze taking in all the liver spots and rash scars marring her skinny old arms. The teen popped up and helped her to sit down on the couch. Clarice resumed playing on the…the big Samsung had become a boxy 32-inch RCA. And that was Clarice Starling, sure, but the actor was now Jodie Foster rather than Rebecca Breeds.
“What’s happening?” Kimberly said, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The teen opened her mouth, but a news alert stopped her short of speaking.
A man on the screen in a suit and tie frowned. “This just in, rapper Tupac Shakur has died. He and music industry mogul, Marian Suge Knight were shot gangland style after Mike Tyson knocked out Bruce Seldon in Las Vegas six days…”
Kimberly turned, confused, terrified, and pained. She shook her head, the pain receding with each heartbeat. She was now in the recliner, was now looking at the old woman, was now herself the girl. The old woman Kimberly had become was fading before her eyes like steam and dissipating from her thoughts.
The telephone rang where it was hung on the wall, and she hopped to her feet to answer.
“Hi?” she said and smiled.
“Be there in like ten.” It was Lucy.
“Cool.”
They were going to get ready at Lucy’s house before checking out the keg party in Gary Ransom’s field. The hope was to get a little drunk and meet some cute guys before heading back to university, perhaps fall in love if the chance dared arise.
Bio:
Eddie Generous is a Canadian author of more than 40 standalone books, he owns and operates Unnerving and Unnerving Magazine, and is a big fan of cats. www.jiffypopandhorror.com
His new novel WHAT HE BECAME comes out October 1.
Urban Pigs Press 
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