After the Storms

Climate change, worsening weather, life changes

Created on Midjourney

“Mom, Gertrude wants in again.”

Marion sighed and set her coffee, of which she had yet to manage even a taste this morning, back down onto the table next to her untouched breakfast. “I swear that cow thinks she’s human,” she grumbled.

Ever since the bad storms last winter when the barn had blown down and they’d had to bring Gertrude into the house to make sure they didn’t lose her too, the cow had gotten it into her head that she was entitled to join the family in the house. In fact, she’d grown quite an ego, acting as though she was part of the family.

“Mom?”

Marion sighed again. Truth was, she had grown attached to the cow and had let it go on. Gertrude, it had turned out, was a sweet-natured, intelligent creature. And she’d never once messed in the house. Not even during the worst of the storms. Truth was, the cow had become part of the family. Despite her earlier resolve not to let her back into the house, Marion gave in—again. “Okay, Randy. Open the door.”

Knowing Gertrude would demand a portion of her toast, Marion made sure she got the first bite, then took a big slug of her coffee before the inevitable shove from behind as an uppity Gertrude nudged her shoulder, demanding her share.

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I haven’t done three-word prompts in a while, so I decided to go back to them. They generally lead me to shorter stories, and right now, I need to write more of those to clear some time during my day.

The words I drew for this story were ego, coffee, and cow. My first thought was to have a mother and her adult son drinking coffee at a farmhouse table with a cow visible through the window. The son was agitated about something and the punchline of the story was going to be, “Don’t have a cow.”

I generated some images on both Midjourney and Leonardo (which I’m experimenting with currently). I didn’t get any images that matched what I was looking for, but the one that inspired the story I did write, spoke to me.

I really liked the little boy and the cow together. The cow really does seem to be expectantly looking at the boy, as if it wants something from him. Some of the other images I had generated had actually put the cow into the kitchen with a woman. Why not? A story was born.

Oh, and if you look closely, this image has a tiny woman in the corner drinking coffee. I think it’s hilarious. I could have edited it out, but decided to leave it in!