Life was not rosy for Farmer Giles with inflation, national insurance, and death duties. That morning his eldest son said he was quitting the farm for adventure in the city.
His day was about to get a whole lot worse.
He drove to the far meadow and saw at once there was a big problem. The cattle should be sleeping but one milch cow was staggering, incapable of standing on its four legs.
He turned off the engine and stared in terror. Through the windscreen he saw another five cows in the same condition. This could mean only one thing. Tears trickled down his face and he gripped the steering wheel and rocked back and forth. Of all the bad luck in the world, he cursed aloud, his herd had been infected with Mad Cow Disease.
He had no choice; the whole lot had to be slaughtered: it meant the end of his farm.
He called in the vet. She didn’t believe him: Mad Cow Disease was history. There was something else going on and she was determined to find out.
The cows were certainly staggering and there were piles of vomit. She had an idea and laughed out loud: you couldn’t make it up.
It took only the whisky-scented breath of one cow to confirm her suspicion.
Across the field a brook was running whisky instead of water.
In the dead of night, the police sent a raiding party to an upstream barn to find two illegal whisky stills.
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 