The MOOtamorphosis
-by Shira Margulies
I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!
-Gelett Burgess
When I woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, I found myself changed in my bed into a purple cow. After rolling back and forth on my back in a futile attempt to fall out of bed, I realized how ridiculous I was being. I simply had to turn onto my stomach and jump down. I say jump because, as you may not know, purple cows are considerably smaller than those boring, out-of-date black and white ones. For those who are unfamiliar with purple cows, I shall now recount to you their mostly-but- not-quite forgotten history.
One fine morning, a small, lonely cow grazed in a small, lonely field on a small, lonely farm. It had spent the whole morning chewing on delicious tasting purple flowers. Its teeth moved in a slow, grinding motion. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. It continued into the afternoon. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. And into the evening. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. The winds were getting strong. Chew. Thunder rumbled in the not-even-remotely-silent night. Chew. Rain poured. Chew. Lightening flashed. Swallow-Bang! Lightening struck the cow, just as it swallowed the very last purple flower in the field. The electric current sizzling over the cow mixed with the chewed up purple flower. As a result, a purple electric current flowed throughout the small cow's body, spreading the purple dye over its black and white coat. The dye was permanent. The cow was lucky to have survived the incident but it was no longer an ordinary black and white cow. It was a purple cow. Its genes were purple as well and every calf born from this cow was born purple. It started a whole new species. It also inspired the discovery of color televisions instead of the boring, out-of date black and white ones. After all, if a cow can turn color, why not T.V.?
But I digress. I smiled, or the closest thing to it, being a purple cow and all, and made a mental note to pay ten cents to Mikey for stealing his phrase. I like that phrase and I like digressing. It is now your cue to announce, "Mikey, she likes it!" And I digress again. Ten more cents. Wow, I believe I have the unique ability to ramble on about nothing. Well, who knows how a cow's mind works? And a purple cow, no less. So, to resume, I finally figured out how to fall out of bed properly. After doing this successfully (and making as big a thump as cowly possible in the process), I took a good look at my surroundings. Gee, things sure looked different standing on four legs. I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next. I was waiting for a "You are the one. Follow the white rabbit" sort of thing. A "Luke, I am your father" would have worked too. Unfortunately, I got neither. What I did get was a whole lot of nothing. I stood in my room and stared at the walls, the ceiling, the shelves of books, the bed...the door. Ah. An exit. Or was it an entrance? I never did figure that one out. If humans are more competent than doors, how is it that a door can serve two functions while a human can only serve one? A door can be an exit and an entrance. But a person can only be a person. A girl cannot also be a boy (or I should hope not). A tall person cannot also be short. A fat person cannot also be skinny. A blonde person cannot also have electric blue hair (well, I'm not so sure about that one). But, anyhow, a person is a person. End of story. However, an exit is not only an exit. It is also an entrance. Oh, sure, silly humans think they can trick exits into thinking they are only exits and nothing more by putting up those ridiculous signs that say "exit only." But it's not like anyone listens to them anyway. The door certainly doesn't. If someone used it for an entrance, it would still open. It knows it is an exit as well as an entrance. So it must be true, then, that doors really are smarter and more capable than humans and are probably laughing at our stupidity and incompetence right at this very moment.
I stared at the door with newfound admiration. Wow. Doors really are something to talk about. I mean, if you want to get anywhere in life, you always have to first go through a door. Without them, we'd always be in one place, never leaving. And yet people (and cows) think that doors are just some old pieces of wood that swing back and forth all day to serve mankind. How udderly (pun intended) pathetic.
Back to me being a cow. Where was I again? Ah yes, staring at the door. So, I was staring at the door (please excuse my redundancy. It's something that happens every so often. Cows can't help it. We especially enjoy being redundant when it comes to food. Chewing cud is udderly [pun is intended once again] repulsive but oh so repetitive. We like things to happen over and over and over. I believe it's because it takes time for our brains to register the fact that something actually happened. We're quite slow thinkers. Maybe that's why we move so slowly too. Did you ever wonder why cows say "moo" as opposed to something more intelligent? I think it's because they're trying to tell their fellow cows to moooove a little faster, only they themselves are moving so slowly that the whole word "move" takes much too long to say. So "moo" will have to do.)
When suddenly, a loud pounding reverberated through the old piece of wood that swings back and forth all day to serve mankind (if you are confused about the beginning of this paragraph, I found myself being rather redundant and chose not to repeat yet again that I was staring at the door. Wait, did I already tell you I was being redundant? I am sorry. Cows have a tendency to be redundant, especially purple ones. Oh, I told you this already? I am very sorry. You see, purple cows tend to be rather redundant...wait a minute? You've already heard this quite a few times and you're going to literally murder me if I tell it again? I really am truly very sorry). Anyway, to resume, a loud pounding sounded from the other side of the door. I mooed, "What is it?" and was answered with silence. I heard some whisperings and expected someone to open the door and shriek, "Aaahhhh! There's a cow in the house!!!" Which is exactly what happened, only my expectation forgot to include the said person adding, "a purple one!!!"
I found this highly amusing and decided to scare person A even more. "Moo," I said slowly, annunciating the whole syllable. Person A shrieked again and person B ran to get person C, apparently for protection. Purple cows, I must inform you, are extremely harmless and highly dangerous. Kind of like doors, we can be two things at once. Please don't ask me how because I'm afraid I can't explain it. If you would like to be a bit less confused, I would recommend reading the complete The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. It might clear a few things up, such as how the Universe has a population of zero.
So, person B came running back with person C, a slightly taller and sillier looking being. Person C gave a shriek and went to make a phone call about me. I thought it was a whole lot of fuss to be making about a harmlessly dangerous purple cow. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not sure which), a purple cow's attention span is not very long. Yawning with boredom, I turned away from the shriek show and went back into my room, closing the door behind me with a kick of my foot, right in persons A and B's faces. Score! One point for me! I jumped up onto my bed and stared out the window. After about 23 seconds, I lost interest and proceeded to attempt climbing on the ceiling. That didn't go over very well, for both the floor and for me.
Suddenly remembering I was not a bug but, in fact, a purple cow, I decided against trying to crawl on the walls. It then occurred to me that I was going to have to do something about my predicament. I couldn't, in my present situation, intelligently communicate with the humans in my house, for their stupidity, I'm afraid, does not allow them to understand a single intelligent thing I moo. Poor things. Well, I sighed, it's nothing I'm going to worry about. Hakuna matata. There was only one thing for me to do. Run away. The window looked too small for a regular cow to fit through and I hung my head in despair. But, hakuna matata again, I then remembered that I was a purple cow and could, in fact, climb through the window. Hurray!!!
So tell me, have I successfully befuddled you about my size? If Kafka/Gregor the bug can be ambiguous about his size then so can I. Ambiguousity (a word I neologized for my convenience) is a beautiful thing. Now, a good writer is supposed to make you think, right? Well, I sure was thinking. Kafka should have made me wonder about the meaning of life but I already know the answer to that is forty-two. What people are trying to figure out now is the question. I mean, what's six times seven? Forty-two! But how can six times seven be the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of forty-two? For that is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
So now, after my bit of plagiarism (ok, I'll give a couple of cents to Douglas Adams for the forty-two bit), I will now steal one more thing from my friend D.A. (not district attorney. Douglas Adams). The answer to why I woke up as a purple cow is just this: anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. And there you have it, no more sitting and wondering. Why did I turn into a purple cow? Because it happened. That's all there is to it.
And now, since this story has an infinite number of endings (and therefore has no ending), I will leave you now with...what? What did you say? Gelett Burgess is rolling in his grave? Yikes! I forgot! He wrote a follow-up poem to the purple cow:
Ah, yes, I wrote the purple cow,
I'm sorry now, I wrote it,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'll kill you if you quote it! Light! Blood and ashes, I've got to end this story quickly! Ok, before my departure (or before I make a run for it, whichever you prefer), I would like to leave you with something to think about (since all good writers are supposed to make you think). If the early bird gets the worm, what happens to the early worm?
-by Shira Margulies
I never saw a purple cow,
I never hope to see one,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one!
-Gelett Burgess
When I woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, I found myself changed in my bed into a purple cow. After rolling back and forth on my back in a futile attempt to fall out of bed, I realized how ridiculous I was being. I simply had to turn onto my stomach and jump down. I say jump because, as you may not know, purple cows are considerably smaller than those boring, out-of-date black and white ones. For those who are unfamiliar with purple cows, I shall now recount to you their mostly-but- not-quite forgotten history.
One fine morning, a small, lonely cow grazed in a small, lonely field on a small, lonely farm. It had spent the whole morning chewing on delicious tasting purple flowers. Its teeth moved in a slow, grinding motion. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. It continued into the afternoon. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. And into the evening. Chew. Chew. Chew. Swallow. The winds were getting strong. Chew. Thunder rumbled in the not-even-remotely-silent night. Chew. Rain poured. Chew. Lightening flashed. Swallow-Bang! Lightening struck the cow, just as it swallowed the very last purple flower in the field. The electric current sizzling over the cow mixed with the chewed up purple flower. As a result, a purple electric current flowed throughout the small cow's body, spreading the purple dye over its black and white coat. The dye was permanent. The cow was lucky to have survived the incident but it was no longer an ordinary black and white cow. It was a purple cow. Its genes were purple as well and every calf born from this cow was born purple. It started a whole new species. It also inspired the discovery of color televisions instead of the boring, out-of date black and white ones. After all, if a cow can turn color, why not T.V.?
But I digress. I smiled, or the closest thing to it, being a purple cow and all, and made a mental note to pay ten cents to Mikey for stealing his phrase. I like that phrase and I like digressing. It is now your cue to announce, "Mikey, she likes it!" And I digress again. Ten more cents. Wow, I believe I have the unique ability to ramble on about nothing. Well, who knows how a cow's mind works? And a purple cow, no less. So, to resume, I finally figured out how to fall out of bed properly. After doing this successfully (and making as big a thump as cowly possible in the process), I took a good look at my surroundings. Gee, things sure looked different standing on four legs. I wasn't sure what was supposed to happen next. I was waiting for a "You are the one. Follow the white rabbit" sort of thing. A "Luke, I am your father" would have worked too. Unfortunately, I got neither. What I did get was a whole lot of nothing. I stood in my room and stared at the walls, the ceiling, the shelves of books, the bed...the door. Ah. An exit. Or was it an entrance? I never did figure that one out. If humans are more competent than doors, how is it that a door can serve two functions while a human can only serve one? A door can be an exit and an entrance. But a person can only be a person. A girl cannot also be a boy (or I should hope not). A tall person cannot also be short. A fat person cannot also be skinny. A blonde person cannot also have electric blue hair (well, I'm not so sure about that one). But, anyhow, a person is a person. End of story. However, an exit is not only an exit. It is also an entrance. Oh, sure, silly humans think they can trick exits into thinking they are only exits and nothing more by putting up those ridiculous signs that say "exit only." But it's not like anyone listens to them anyway. The door certainly doesn't. If someone used it for an entrance, it would still open. It knows it is an exit as well as an entrance. So it must be true, then, that doors really are smarter and more capable than humans and are probably laughing at our stupidity and incompetence right at this very moment.
I stared at the door with newfound admiration. Wow. Doors really are something to talk about. I mean, if you want to get anywhere in life, you always have to first go through a door. Without them, we'd always be in one place, never leaving. And yet people (and cows) think that doors are just some old pieces of wood that swing back and forth all day to serve mankind. How udderly (pun intended) pathetic.
Back to me being a cow. Where was I again? Ah yes, staring at the door. So, I was staring at the door (please excuse my redundancy. It's something that happens every so often. Cows can't help it. We especially enjoy being redundant when it comes to food. Chewing cud is udderly [pun is intended once again] repulsive but oh so repetitive. We like things to happen over and over and over. I believe it's because it takes time for our brains to register the fact that something actually happened. We're quite slow thinkers. Maybe that's why we move so slowly too. Did you ever wonder why cows say "moo" as opposed to something more intelligent? I think it's because they're trying to tell their fellow cows to moooove a little faster, only they themselves are moving so slowly that the whole word "move" takes much too long to say. So "moo" will have to do.)
When suddenly, a loud pounding reverberated through the old piece of wood that swings back and forth all day to serve mankind (if you are confused about the beginning of this paragraph, I found myself being rather redundant and chose not to repeat yet again that I was staring at the door. Wait, did I already tell you I was being redundant? I am sorry. Cows have a tendency to be redundant, especially purple ones. Oh, I told you this already? I am very sorry. You see, purple cows tend to be rather redundant...wait a minute? You've already heard this quite a few times and you're going to literally murder me if I tell it again? I really am truly very sorry). Anyway, to resume, a loud pounding sounded from the other side of the door. I mooed, "What is it?" and was answered with silence. I heard some whisperings and expected someone to open the door and shriek, "Aaahhhh! There's a cow in the house!!!" Which is exactly what happened, only my expectation forgot to include the said person adding, "a purple one!!!"
I found this highly amusing and decided to scare person A even more. "Moo," I said slowly, annunciating the whole syllable. Person A shrieked again and person B ran to get person C, apparently for protection. Purple cows, I must inform you, are extremely harmless and highly dangerous. Kind of like doors, we can be two things at once. Please don't ask me how because I'm afraid I can't explain it. If you would like to be a bit less confused, I would recommend reading the complete The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams. It might clear a few things up, such as how the Universe has a population of zero.
So, person B came running back with person C, a slightly taller and sillier looking being. Person C gave a shriek and went to make a phone call about me. I thought it was a whole lot of fuss to be making about a harmlessly dangerous purple cow. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I'm not sure which), a purple cow's attention span is not very long. Yawning with boredom, I turned away from the shriek show and went back into my room, closing the door behind me with a kick of my foot, right in persons A and B's faces. Score! One point for me! I jumped up onto my bed and stared out the window. After about 23 seconds, I lost interest and proceeded to attempt climbing on the ceiling. That didn't go over very well, for both the floor and for me.
Suddenly remembering I was not a bug but, in fact, a purple cow, I decided against trying to crawl on the walls. It then occurred to me that I was going to have to do something about my predicament. I couldn't, in my present situation, intelligently communicate with the humans in my house, for their stupidity, I'm afraid, does not allow them to understand a single intelligent thing I moo. Poor things. Well, I sighed, it's nothing I'm going to worry about. Hakuna matata. There was only one thing for me to do. Run away. The window looked too small for a regular cow to fit through and I hung my head in despair. But, hakuna matata again, I then remembered that I was a purple cow and could, in fact, climb through the window. Hurray!!!
So tell me, have I successfully befuddled you about my size? If Kafka/Gregor the bug can be ambiguous about his size then so can I. Ambiguousity (a word I neologized for my convenience) is a beautiful thing. Now, a good writer is supposed to make you think, right? Well, I sure was thinking. Kafka should have made me wonder about the meaning of life but I already know the answer to that is forty-two. What people are trying to figure out now is the question. I mean, what's six times seven? Forty-two! But how can six times seven be the ultimate question to the ultimate answer of forty-two? For that is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.
So now, after my bit of plagiarism (ok, I'll give a couple of cents to Douglas Adams for the forty-two bit), I will now steal one more thing from my friend D.A. (not district attorney. Douglas Adams). The answer to why I woke up as a purple cow is just this: anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. And there you have it, no more sitting and wondering. Why did I turn into a purple cow? Because it happened. That's all there is to it.
And now, since this story has an infinite number of endings (and therefore has no ending), I will leave you now with...what? What did you say? Gelett Burgess is rolling in his grave? Yikes! I forgot! He wrote a follow-up poem to the purple cow:
Ah, yes, I wrote the purple cow,
I'm sorry now, I wrote it,
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'll kill you if you quote it! Light! Blood and ashes, I've got to end this story quickly! Ok, before my departure (or before I make a run for it, whichever you prefer), I would like to leave you with something to think about (since all good writers are supposed to make you think). If the early bird gets the worm, what happens to the early worm?