By the end of the week , the smell is so strong that it ’ s getting in through the windows . You try stuffing paper into the corners and all up the sides . You rip pages from the Nature book and make a paste with flour and water ( you learnt this in the Housekeeping book ), but it doesn ’ t work . It almost makes it worse , because now the windows are blacked out and your whole world is filled with the smell of death . Rotting . Fly saliva . Blood . It soaks into the carpet and the driftwood . You ’ ve forgotten what beaches smell like . What do we do ? No one else has done anything . Perhaps it ’ s fine . The Nature book , a page you ripped out , said that carcasses take three to four months to decay .
It ’ s a new morning and the smell is going . It ’ s not so strong . The dense , girthy smell of rot is drifting away like water . The world is dark . Hot . You walk up to put the kettle on . You drop a teabag in the cup . You splash your face with mildly warm water as the water always is in Summer . You peel off the paper and look out at the Courtyard . And there is violence . The mouths of the cows are washed with deep purple , their eyes flecked with white , their chests streaked gluey , crimson red . In their teeth dangles patchwork flesh , the body on the floor now a frothing collection of parts . What are they doing ? This is murder . Is it murder if it was already dead ? Their bodies are marked with its insides . From behind the glass you hear them moan as if enjoying it , their eyes violence , their mouths graves ; violated , their necks rubbing the defiled flesh . It is brutality . You take a step away . This is not something you want to see . But they keep pulling , pulling splitting , ripping . Three heads swallowing and licking . They do not stop . When will they stop ? You see Directly In Front Of You , but you can ’ t see any expression . A fly lands on your window . Its thin , thread-like legs patting on the glass . Your cut looks green . It ’ s not meant to do that . Why is it doing that ? The cows don ’ t stop . Why won ’ t they stop ? The corpse isn ’ t even a cow anymore . It is spread across the Courtyard . Its parts are everywhere . Put it back together . Put it back how it ’ s meant to be . Everywhere is flesh . Flesh on stone . Flesh on glass . A memory of the Nature book flashes : All flesh is grass . Yes . You watch a sinew rip . All flesh is grass . When grass is stone .
Maili Jordan 81