Holy Cow

47 COMING HOME

It took about twelve hours for Shalom and Tom to descend from the silly sky. But that’s the thing, you can’t just stay high. What goes up must come down. I had spent a long time dreaming of India, it’s true. But I’m not upset that India didn’t turn out the way I had planned, didn’t in the end match up with my dream India. Without my vision of a dream India, I never would have gone anywhere, never would have had any adventures at all. So I guess it’s not so important that dreams come true, it’s just important that you have a dream to begin with, to get you to take your first steps.

I have dictated this memoir in an undisclosed location (Jamaica) and I am flying back to the United States and to my home to coincide with the publishing of my book. We’re all flying back.

“We’re all flying back.”

Tom is going to try to officially become a pilot, while working toward getting a presidential pardon from President Obama for next Thanksgiving Day. He is also lobbying for Tofurky to replace turkey as the meal of choice for that holiday. It’s a long shot, but he seems to have Michelle’s ear on this.

Shalom and Joe have been short-listed for the Nobel Peace Prize for their work in the Middle East, and they may very well win. But first, Shalom may have to spend a few weeks in rehab trying to ween himself off his newfound predilection for psychedelic drugs.

Me? I want America to hear of my journey. I want you, boys and girls, men and women, fauna and fowl, to learn what I’ve learned-that it is not right to be reviled, nor is it right to be worshipped. We are not gods and goddesses, nor are we devils and beasts. I know nature is red in tooth and claw. I don’t blame Wolfsheim for trying to eat us; that’s in his nature, what he needs to do to survive. And I know that a life led like Mallory’s can have dignity and sanctity, that you can spend a few good years on a farm, have a child, and then be sacrificed to feed someone. There’s a simple, circular beauty in that. I happen to be a vegetarian like all cows, but I’m not naive enough to ask a tiger to forswear meat and eat bean sprouts. We are all animals and we have our place in the womb of Mother Nature. Only man has separated himself from the great chain of being and from all the other animals, and I think that has been to his great detriment, and sadness, and to ours.

I can no longer be part of the herd. I want to be heard.