Fiction: work. life. space cows.

It didn’t surprise me at all when Hari’s open contempt for Mitch turned from passive hostility into active agression. Perhaps aggression is the wrong word, though my generation certainly grew up understanding that pranks, bullying and even joke-making at the expense of a targeted individual were a kind of aggression that so-called enlightened folks tended

Hari and Felix and I always ate together, but Mitch mostly kept to himself during our breaks. I couldn’t fault him. I was always more willing to put up with Hari’s bullshit and Felix had a kind of blinder on for anything that was going on around him. But Mitch was one of those quiet

There were eight wranglers assigned per two thousand head of cattle and we worked in six hour shifts of four guys. I say “guys” because my shift was four guys, but there were plenty of women working the pens and even one whole shift of ladies a few decks up. I write it now because

Hari is nine years my senior and with me being just twenty-six years old, that makes him damn near ancient as a wrangler. He’s got nine years of experience over me, nine years of drinking, smoking, and hard-living beyond mine, and a couple extra notches on his bedpost back on Earth over what I’ve managed

I grew up near a small prairie town in the backwaters of rural Canada, working my parent’s farm until I was old enough to know better but too young to do anything about it. Dad died when I was nineteen, and my eldest brother thought he knew better and quickly talked mom in to selling