Leroy Carter

© Leroy Carter 2005

What Are Ewe?

“Danny… DANNY!! Feed those bloody sheep!”

Jesus Christ! Feed the bloody sheep yourself. The thought of shouting words to that effect back downstairs amuses me…… briefly. In fact the image only stays humorous for the 3 nanoseconds it takes the pain of last night’s beating to travel up my spine. Fear of a repeat thrashing from my father makes my leg ache. The fist-size bruises seem to grow and throb before my eyes. The previous night’s drunken attack on me had been terrifying, but I’d had worse. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was useless, someone to be beaten like a dog until a little sense had been knocked into me. He’d said that last night, shouting into my face, the reeking whisky breath making me gag whilst the flecks of his spittle mingled with my tears. He hadn’t always been like this.

We had been happy once. We had…. it wasn’t a dream. The house had been alive, but then so had Mum. Those were the times before my sister went to university, before the cancer took my Mum. Since then Dad had shrunk as a man and grown as a monster. He drank to forget Mother and to forget himself.

“I’m just going to finish my homework, Dad. I’ve only one more chapter to go.”

“How many times do I have to tell you, chores first, homework second.”

“But Dad, I’m nearly...”

The sound of feet crashing up the wooden stairs stills my tongue. He shouts before he has even entered my tiny room, “DANNY!”

 “What did you eat tonight?” He screams down at me.

I say nothing. I have learnt that silence is the best ploy when my father has been drinking.

“I said what the hell did you have for dinner tonight? Eh?” He grabs my head and twists it till I face the direction of the pasture, staring in the same direction himself as if he can see the sheep through the plaster and stone. “See those fucking sheep out there?” Well actually, no, I can’t but I’m not gonna say that am I? “Its sheep that pay for you’re flipping dinner not those bloody books so you had better get used to it. When you leave school in the summer they’ll be no time for reading or skiving or fannying around.”

He turns my head till I am looking in his eyes. He whispers softly, menacingly.

“Get… the…. Fuck…. outside.”

It scares me when he swears; it really does. I know what it leads to. He never used to, it only really started after Mum…

I go. It’s not like I don’t like the sheep, its just I don’t him telling me what I must do. I don’t like the fact that I will have to leave school early. When Mum was here there was talk of me going onto university, just like Morag. Not now. If Dad has his way I will never leave this croft.

The sack of feed feels heavy on my back but I don’t mind the burden. The night is cool and the bleating of the sheep comforts me. I am surrounded by them as they nuzzle up to me, jostling for the troughs. After emptying the sack I decide not to go home just yet, but wait a while. The moon is bright and a walk up the hill and back should hopefully coincide with my father slipping off into his nightly stupor.

I hear something following me. Dad? Turning quickly I relax when I notice that it is only a sheep. She’s a large cheviot ewe that rather curiously has a black face. Whilst this is not unheard of it is unusual and I’m sure that my father would have mentioned it to me before. I look for our mark on her flank but it is absent, in fact she has no mark at all.

“Who you do you belong to, you stupid sheep?” I make a mental note to tell my father about her tomorrow. No doubt he will stick his own brand onto it and we will be plus a sheep. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The cheviot has a strange look to her, most un-sheep like. It’s like she is listening to me.

“Oh well, you are ours now, you daftie. That’ll teach you to stray onto our croft.”

I look down to where the other sheep are feeding and then back to the cheviot.

“I guess you are not hungry, eh, sheepy?”

She looks up at me and SPEAKS!!!!

 “I’m not hungry. I have had my supplementary, nutritional injections before leaving planet XY.”

It can only be the sheep for there is no-one else within half a mile.

My heart beats faster and faster. This is impossible, sheep don’t talk. They cannot talk. Only humans and maybe parrots can talk. This is no parrot, besides, who ever heard of a parrot hailing from the planet XY? Sheep are stupid and lack the physical apparatus to form intelligible words.

 Sheepy is looking away and the realisation hits me. I AM INSANE! The voice is in my head. The endless beatings and the emotional trauma of losing my mother must have contrived to turn my fragile little mind in to gibbering mush. Jeez, mush for a brain. How’s that gonna look on my CV? ‘My name is Danny, I can hear sheep talk about strange planets and if you look at my right nostril you will see what is left of my brain dribbling out.’ My life is ruined, no one will ever give me a normal job and I’ll be over-qualified for Burger King!

“Who is the Burger King, is he your Monarch?”

Oh God! I won’t answer; I refuse to legitimise my delusional mind.

“You don’t have to speak, Danny. I hear your thoughts.”

Could this get any worse? Not content with the mental fabrication of a talking sheep from the Planet XY my subconscious has decided to add a new twist; my sheep can now read minds. What next? Sheepy the palm reader? Will my sheep set up tent at the village fete and see the future over an upturned goldfish bowl?

“I am no charlatan, Danny and you are not insane. My current form is merely that of a sheep and I am of this world. I fail to see how that would make you certifiable.”

I turn to look at IT. “Oh, of course I’m not mad. This is a perfectly normal episode for me... you know the talking, ET, sheep thing…………..GET OUT OF MY HEAD!”

I collapse and start whimpering, very loudly. I have never done this before but it is what crazies do; I seem sure of this fact because I have seen ‘One flew Over the Cuckoos Nest!’ Checking the corner of my mouth I am encouraged to find a nice, slick of saliva dribbling down. Aha, now I am crazy. He He!

“I am most sorry, Danny, you leave me no choice. Your primitive cerebrum cannot overcome the complexities of my current state and therefore you are unable to give me the information I require. It shall only be for a few days at most, I promise.”

With incredible agility the sheep-thing of my imagination stands up on its back legs. As if grabbed by a poltergeist the udder swings in my direction. Transfixed by shock I cannot cover my ears to the high-pitched whine or my face to the cloud of purple smoke that cannons out obscenely from the pulsating udder…….

Consciousness returns slowly and painfully. My head is in a vice. As the vice is being turned, boiling liquid is poured onto my forehead…. Well, that’s how it feels to me. What I really have is the mother and father of all headaches. A brain-buster! Horrific visions of the ‘alien-sheep’ fill my mind and I wonder how a dream could seem so real. Shaking my head to clear the headache I realise that I cannot move my head. Not one inch. I open my eyes but see nothing, just a black so complete I may as well be blind. Maybe I am. A quick examination reveals that my arms and legs are shackled. I am trapped. Shouting out doesn’t bring any help. My voice sounds strange. Sort of feeble, almost worn out and far removed from the voice I remember.

My vision gradually starts to return or rather the place of my confinement is becoming illuminated. I can be in no doubt now that my ‘dream’ was all too real. The room I am secured in is very strange. It is a half-sphere and appears to have no doors or windows. The colour is not unlike I would expect if someone shone a light through a glass of blood. The room is lit from some sort of external source. My sight is very blurry, like I am looking through a glass of water.

“Finally, you are awake.” The voice comes from somewhere behind me. It is the voice of the alien-sheep.

I am too frightened to speak. My head spins and my heart labours to pump oxygen around my body. I will not show my fear, not anymore. At least I know that I am not crazy. It isn’t really any sort of consolation is it? I think I would rather be crazy back home than stuck here (wherever that is!) inside a drop of blood with only an udder-toting alien-sheep-monster for company.

“We are going to send you home very shortly, Danny, we have no more need of you. You will be happy to know that we have extracted all of the information we needed. You are very wise for one who was so young.”

My curiosity starts to get the better of me, maybe, they will release me. After all if they wanted to kill me I would have been dead by now.

“Why have you taken me from my home,” I ask, tentatively. Not being able to see the speaker is making me even more frightened. More frightened!! That’s a joke! I’m manacled in a strange craft whilst conversing with an alien being! Could I be any more terrified?

“I told you already, we had to get some information from you. It is a study that I am providing for the Collective of Higher Learning, a most prestigious institution. Xyian-kind will be stunned by the revelations of my findings.” He laughs pompously. “And to think we thought you humans lived for over…” he stops abruptly and steps into my field of vision.

The horrific alien being I’d imagined fails to materialise. I am disappointed in his appearance, but not his means of movement. He hovers, silently. He does not look remotely alien. In fact he looks more human than me. Covering his form is a one piece garment which is the same sickening shade as my surroundings. A studious, pinched face under a shock of greying, tangled hair gives him the appearance of an absent-minded professor. I forget he can read my thoughts.

“Disappointed, eh? What were you expecting? A little green man? Or maybe even a dalek? Ha ha! You humans do disappoint me, but you are all so quaint. Well, we mustn’t keep you here any more.”

“Where is here?” For all I know I could be millions of miles from earth.

“No, no. Not millions of miles, just a few. To be precise you are seven point two miles away from your home.” He reaches in to a pocket and pulls out a small purple device. He presses a button on the device which starts to glow. Simultaneously my shackles are removed and I sense that we have started to move.

After dropping the few inches to the ground I collapse in to an ungainly heap. Trying to stand is no good; my legs cannot support my frame. My heart nearly stops as I see my hands. They cannot be mine. Can they? Long curled nails grow out of frail, bony, desiccated fingers. Liver-spots adorn the back of my hands whilst the skin is stretched tight like cling-film over bones.

I look up at it. “What have you done to me you, bastard?” I croak, in an ever weakening voice. My chest feels tight and my heart threatens to leap out of my chest.

“Done? I have done nothing to you Danny; it is your own human frailty. Perhaps I should have mentioned it previously, but it was of no importance. Sacrifices must be made in the name of science; you understand that?

“You promised….. just a few days. I remember.”

“Yes I did, didn’t I? The purple gas that left you unconscious and amenable to our probes and questions is designed to knock you out for just three Xyian days. Unfortunately for you one Xyian day is worth thirty of your earth years! Congratulations! You are one hundred and five years old! You should be thanking me, Danny. Not many humans live to your age!”

I try to speak but lack the strength. My heart has stopped racing. I can feel it getting slower, and slower, and…