I'd been winding along cautiously through the meandering backroads of the Berkshires, and was only now coming on to level land.  I had no idea where I was.  It had started raining lightly not long after I left Cathy, but now it was slashing down like bullets--little bullets, made out of water.  It started coming down so hard I couldn't see past the hood.  I decided not to push my luck: I slowed down and eased the car onto the shoulder, figuring I'd wait the storm out.

Unfortunately, there was no shoulder.

It was neither the startling, uncomfortable drive down the side of the hill, nor the cow that unintentionally stopped me, that ultimately killed the car.  It was my own idiocy.  Once the car had come to a sickening stop atop its kill, I had leaped out in fear that it might explode.  My vision improved dramatically now that I was seeing the world without the handicap of a rain bespattered windshield, and the first thing I noticed was the dead cow embellishing the front of my car.  I spun away from the sight immediately, and was then afforded a view of the hillside I had ravaged in my descent; ludicrously swerving, parallel troughs of mud chronicled my fall from grace. I had driven myself off the road, down a forty foot hill, and into a cow.

I remembered what Cathy had said.  This may not have been an accident.  This may have been part of a larger plan.  Great forces were at work.  I was an idiot, but there was a Larger Idiocy at play.  (I also remembered Cathy's advice to stop capitalizing Everying.)

Then I noticed the cows I hadn't hit, standing stupidly in the rain, staring at me.   They hadn't been there a minute ago; they just appeared out of the mist and fog.   I didn’t like the way they were looking at me.  It seemed accusatory.   It wasn't as if I'd been aiming for their friend, but I still felt kind of ashamed.   A cow's a pretty big thing.  Killing one weighs on the conscience, no matter how many cheeseburgers you've eaten.

Anyway, it was clear that the car wasn't going to blow up.  It was time to get the hell out of there.

I got the car backed off the cow easily enough, though parts of her still clung to the grille, but the engine made such a weird knocking sound that I figured I ought to have a look at it before attempting the slopes.

I lifted the hood, gagging on the stench of dead cow, and stared down at the engine. Warm rain swept down on us.  I didn’t know anything about cars, so there wasn’t much I could do but look.  So I looked.  I thought maybe I should check the oil.  I did.  The oil was fine.  I checked the coolant.  Plenty of coolant.   Looked like I was a little low on windshield wiper fluid, but I figured that probably wasn't the source of the problem.  Those were the only things I knew how to check.  I looked at the engine for a little while longer.  Nothing moved.   Nothing smoked.  Nothing leaked.  It was an engine.

Finally I determined something I had known secretly from the start: there was nothing to be done.  Or there was, I just wasn't the guy to do it.  I lowered the hood, climbed back into the car -- drenching its fine simulated leather -- and turned the key. Nothing.  The car was dead.  It shouldn't have been such a surprise: I'd only soaked the engine block for twenty minutes.

I turned on the hazards, locked the car, and began walking. I slipped several times on my way up to the road.  At the top of the hill, I turned and took a last look at the mess I was abandoning.

Several more curious cows had approached their fallen companion, and mooed mournfully around her. One was looking right at me.

"You think cows don't have feelings," she was trying to say, "You think we're just dumb animals. Well, who's the dumb animal that did this?"

I felt really bad.

"I'm sorry," I shouted down to them. Several bovine heads turned and their wide, sad eyes met mine. "I really am."

They looked back at their friend, and at each other.  I wondered if any of them were thinking about how sudden, how very random and meaningless her death had been.   Were they asking themselves why it hadn't been them?  Were they plotting revenge?  Were they numb with grief?

They're cows, I reminded myself.  They'll end up on dinner plates with parsley and baked potatoes.  I was an idiot to stand there in the rain, repenting.   Ought to go down and club a few of those suckers over the head, I told myself.   Just to keep them in line.  Just to remind them that they're cows, and I'm a superior being.  Just to remind myself that cows are born to die.  Steak.   Leather.  Milk.  They're not animals, they're resources.  Like coal, but tastier.

The cows were just sad and wet, and didn't understand anything about the food chain or slaughterhouses.  All they knew was that one minute their friend had been plodding around and chewing her cud in the rain with the rest of them, and then suddenly she wasn't.  I turned away and stepped onto the road.  It was good to be on solid ground again.   My sneakers were drenched.  I was half covered in mud.  I wondered which way to go.

I decided I ought to find the home of whoever owned the field (and cow) into which I'd descended.  Visibility had of course been awful, but I couldn't remember having passed a home within the past half mile before the accident, so I trudged along in the direction in which I'd been headed.

It was a rotten walk. The rain was warm and heavy, and there were puddles everywhere.   I tried not to think about it.  I tried to bring my thoughts back to the insights.  One: I'm an idiot.  Two: there is no truth.

That wasn't much to think about, so I just tried to stop thinking altogether.  The further I walked the more I forgot myself.  I was dissolving.  I wasn't aware I was dissolving at the time.  I wasn't aware of anything.  I was in a state of non-being, walking and not-walking, thinking and not-thinking.  I stopped feeling the soft, muddy roadside beneath my feet.  I stopped feeling the constant caress of the late spring rain.  I stopped hearing it slice through the leafy ceiling of the woods around me.  I stopped hearing my footsteps.  I stopped seeing the winding road before me.

I stopped.  Everything stopped.

I floated away, high away, and saw my pathetic shell plodding morosely below me.   Higher and higher I sailed, above the treetops, the countryside rolling lavishly around me in every direction.  Mountains loomed sullenly on the horizon; mere ghosts for the fog that veiled them.  The sky was silent and infinite; gray and lonely.   The earth was far below, the dun underbelly of Heaven fast approaching, now swirling around me, surrounding me, and then, at last, breaking through to open sky, to the sun and boundless blue horizons.  If I still had my body I'd have thrown up.

But now I was no longer rising.  Now I lay horizontal on a cloud bank; I lay still.  I bet I would have felt an incredible sense of calmness if I hadn't been however many fucking miles up in the air.  I lay very still and tried not to shit my pants.  Fortunately I had no pants, and anyway I couldn't very well shit without an intestinal system.

I noticed a cow lying languidly on a cloud beside me.  She looked at me wanly and winked.  There was nothing else to be said.  I understood.