Animals by J M Jackson

The slaughtered cow’s blood had pooled beneath its gaping neck and reaching tongue. Only the whites of its eyes were showing. The concealed pupils were looking for answers towards the back of the beast’s skull. A battered boy looked on dispassionately.

“It was a p-p-p-p-political war,” he said to the white man interviewing him with flies buzzing around them both.

“I was skilled soldier. If you my enemy, I k-k-k-k-k-k-k-kill you like that. I take your b-b-blood. I eat you.”

The interviewer scribbled some notes, then followed the boy’s bloodshot gaze toward the dead cow.

“We eat now,” said the boy.

J M Jackson is a father and husband based in Buckinghamshire, UK. He is a self-confessed recovering web technologist who prefers writing about life instead of facing up to it. His mind is occupied by unruly Nabokovian irritation and irrepressible Kafkaesque positivity. He purportedly has a novel in him.