Have You Any Wool

 Most people can't take the blood. It takes a special kind of person to be a butcher. Somebody much like a soldier who can be easily desensitized to what he sees. If you grew up like I did with a father who was a butcher, you're already conditioned and don't need any desensitization. I've always been an average person. The community butcher. Until fate played a cruel game with my life. I can't even begin to fathom that you would even consider believing what I must tell you, what happened to me. On my mother's grave it's real, it happened, you are just going to have to make that leap of faith to realize what I have to say is truth. I'll let you come to your own conclusions.

It was a harsh winter, 1847 in Turzovka, a village in Slovakia. The cold clung to your body like a disease. The remaining sheep and cattle we had left that season were dying off from the cold and disease. In the shop I own and operate with my brother Yitzhak, we were soon running out of the slabs and cuts that we had made from healthy oxen, and lamb. We were in danger of going out of business. Not to mention the town was in danger of becoming famished. I was awakened one cold morning by Yitzhak barging into my home and into my sleeping quarters, “Stanislav! Wake up. Wake up, Stanislav, something must be done...”

“Agghh, can't you see I'm trying to sleep; the sun isn't even fully risen.”

“We don't have time to sit around and wait for the sun to rise.”

“What is it brother? What is so important that you must deprive me of my sleep?”

“The people are rioting! We are out of fresh meat for their stews. The few sheep and cattle we have left that haven't died off from this hellish winter are diseased and need to be killed anyway. We need to bring in healthy sheep and cattle from elsewhere.”

“So, what is it Yitzhak, what would you have me do this early in the morning? You are the older and wiser brother, you tell me.”

“Do I have to spell it out for you? You must set off as soon as possible with the last of our funds to the next village and bring back healthy sheep and cattle, to keep up with the food demand.”

“I will go.”

So, I set off on my quest for livestock. Not right away, first I kicked Yitzhak out of my home and laid back down and rested my eyes for a good half hour. After resting I packed a satchel with clothes, some bread, and a large sum of the remainder of the funds we had from the store. I grabbed my walking stick, my dear skin coat and hat, and a bottle of whiskey to sip and keep me warm as I walk, along with other supplies.  I left out the back door of my home as not to run into Yitzhak again or any angry townspeople who need a meal that does not only consist of grains and rotten fruit and vegetables.  So it began.

The closest village with livestock to purchase wasn't that far off, and I thought my task would be simple. However, when I arrived, they were in the same situation as Turzovka. The next town I knew the route to was reported to yet have the same problem. I knew that I couldn't return without livestock. I decided to venture west through the hills and mountains in hopes I would come across what I was sent out to search for. 

What typically is a one-day hike to the edge of the hill country, took me two days in the snow and hale. When I reached the hills, the sun had still not set; therefore, I decided to press on until I reached the mountain. I reached the mountains, but it took several hours after sunset of journeying under moonlight to reach the mountains. 

It was dark and getting colder and I needed a place to sleep for the night. I searched the mountains for an enclave, crevice, or cave; something to keep me sheltered from the cold. To my luck I was able to find the opening of a cave; and I rejoiced because I was out of whiskey and beginning to shiver. I ventured into the cave, and it seemed to be a large cave. I thought that the further I ventured in the better to protect me from the conditions outside. It was an unbelievably long cave; it took me some time until I reached the back of the cave. I made a fire to warm me up and wrapped myself in heavy blankets and fell asleep as the fire went out. That is the last thing I remember of the hill country of western Slovakia.

When I awoke, my legs and arms were tied together, bound like I were one of many cattle going to the butcher shop. My mouth was tied, and I couldn't speak, only make noises. I was in a large wooden cart with sacks of grain. I couldn't see who was driving. I couldn't understand the language they were speaking. I hit my head on the side of the cart and fell asleep. When I awoke the cart was at a standstill. I could see the driver and passenger slowly dismount the buggy and make their way to the back. My eyes did not believe me, nor did I believe my eyes. They were two giant sheep, twice the size of a man, and walking on their hind legs, using their front hooves as hands. They were not making sheep noises; they were speaking in a coherent language more sophisticated than Slavic. I could not decipher what they were saying to each other. One of the sheep grabbed me by the legs and arms and tossed me over his back and started to walk. My only view during this was the sky. The more he walked the more I began to hear more sheep speaking their language.

I was dropped on the ground. I think an accident as I am stocky in build making me heavy. As I was dropped on the ground, I was now able to see much more. I was in the middle of a town with giant sheep people. I saw a building. It had a sign I could not read. It also had a picture of the human figure, and a picture of what seemed to be a butcher’s knife. This must be a dream or a hallucination I thought. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that something like this could be happening. I was able to move the tie in my mouth down around my chin by moving my jaw up and down enough times. I screamed out the loudest I could for help, but all that came from my mouth was “Baaa, Baaaa, Baaaaa...” You may think it may have looked ridiculous a human being making sounds like a sheep. I lost the ability of my Slavic language. The more I screamed or tried to speak coherently all I could do was bah like a sheep from my butcher shop.

The giant sheepman picked me back up and took me into the building with the sign I described and carried me through the building to a lot of land behind the building with some fenced in cages. He tossed me into a cage with other humans. I thought we could plot our escape together, but they were unable to speak any European language. They could only bah, as I did bah. Another giant sheepman came and took a human into the back of the shop. All we could hear as we sat in terror were horrifying screams. 

As a butcher I knew that he would be back again for another cut of meat. I happen to always carry a knife in my boot. I was able to wiggle it out, grab it, and cut my arms and legs free from the ropes that bound them together. I hid in the middle of the cluster of humans waiting for the time to be right as I clenched the knife in my hand. He came out as expected, the giant sheep, and he opened the cage to grab another human. He reached for a man next to me that he threw aside to reach for a woman next to that man. As he reached down for her, I ran behind him and sliced both tendons above the hooves on his hind legs. I also sliced behind the knees of both hind legs that he stood erect on. He immediately fell to the ground, and I stabbed him in the windpipe and then slit his throat. 

Afraid to run into more giant sheep that wouldn't be such an easy kill, I ran through the back of the property away from the village. It was the fastest I have ever run in my entire life. I could see a hill country off in the distance and I started to make my way. Perhaps I could find the cave that had my satchel of supplies in it. I became too exhausted and didn't make it to the mountains or the hill country. I was becoming frozen. I found an abandoned cabin, what seemed a much-oversized cabin to me. I started a fire and found some bread to eat. I wasn't so sure the cabin was abandoned though because there was fresh bread and chopped firewood. Then I heard hove steps on the porch. My heart rate increased. I tried to keep my body under control as adrenaline rushed through my body. I found a dark hiding place in the living area of the cabin. I saw what looked like a mother sheep walk in with her young child sheep. The child was closer to my size and would be an easy kill. The mother would be a bit harder to kill. I was not sure what her move would be if I attacked the child first. Although, if I had only the chance to kill one, the child would be easier to run and escape from. My chance came when she sent the child into the kitchen area to grab something. They were separated, and not for long. I had to make my move quick. The mother turned towards the door, and I ran and jumped onto a stool. I leaped from the stool onto the mothers back. I stabbed her in the eye to disorient her, and she screamed and tried to kick me off her back. I held on as best I could. I could hear the child running into the room. I had to make the kill faster. I made a slice to her larynx, so she was unable to make any screams. I stabbed through her windpipe. She fell to the ground and suffered as she tried to hang on to her life while she slowly inched closer to her final moment. The child had a knife from the kitchen he grabbed when he heard his mother scream. I was hoping not to have to kill a woman and a child. I chose the lesser of two evils. But now it seemed I would have to take the life of this youth to save my own. He charged at me with the giant sheep knife, and I was able to do a quick summer sault role to dodge the attack. I had myself positioned behind him, while his dying mother watched with her one good eye. I didn't want to get too close with the size of his knife. I did what I had to; I threw my knife straight for his heart. However, it did not hit him dead in the heart, but he was a small child and it wounded him enough to drop him to the floor. He screamed in agony as I ran and grabbed his giant kitchen knife. In one foul swoop I decapitated him. I could see his mother out of the corner of my eye reach her hand towards child as I had raised the knife to sever his head. I walked over and severed the mother's head as well, to put her out of her misery. 

In a panic I tried to think logically. I gathered what supplies I could and grabbed a couple of sharp knifes from the kitchen, and I began to run. I ran and ran towards the mountains. Even when I was out of energy the fear powered my legs to keep me running. I ran until I passed out. I awoke to a giant sheep holding me and petting me and speaking softly in its language. As if it were trying to comfort me. We were in a large cabin with many other sheep, most of them holding and caressing humans or having a human on a leash. I thought for sure I had been saved from the cold I passed out in. The cold that would have killed me. The people kept being patted on the head by the sheep, then I heard the most hellacious terrifying scream anyone has ever heard. A sheep had walked into the large cabin with human skin balled up and sat down and began to sew the skin which was the shape of a body without the muscles and bones and organs of a human, all skin, no flesh, and bones. Stich by stich he thrusted a large needle into the skin until he had what looked like a large pouch for storing things in. The sheep that was holding and caressing me got up and walked out of the cabin into a yard and towards a giant red barn behind the cabin. I feared the worse. As we came closer to the cabin the smell was toxic. I looked on the ground and saw human bodies red with muscle and dripping with blood, organs all over the place, bodies with no skin. The sheep carried me into the barn and put me in a pen as it talked to another sheep already in the barn who was holding a very sharp knife, a needle, and some sort of razor blade. He had human blood all over his hoof hands. I needed to escape as I knew my fate if I did not. 

The pen was too high to jump and climb out off and nothing was to be found in the pen but a red muscled skinless human body. This was extreme, we only take the sheep’s fur back home not its skin, it still lives, this was too cruel to be the end of my life. I saw the sheep man with his skinning tools begin to walk towards me I went over to the human body and tore his femur out of his remaining flesh and held on to it behind my back as the sheep man picked me up and started to walk over to his skinning table. He had set the tools down on the table before coming over to pick me up. I bit his hoof as hard as I could. So hard that a tooth fell out and my mouth and my gums started to bleed. He put his hand to his mouth and after letting out a loud whaling scream. I used that opportunity to climb his other arm like a rope and hop onto his shoulder and stab him in the eye with the femur I was holding. While the femur was dull on the end without a sharpened tip, I still was able to thrust it so hard that it went deep into his eye as if it were a needle. He fell to the ground screaming in agonizing pain, and the sheep that had brought me to him began to scream in terror and ran back towards the cabin we came from. 

I knew I didn’t have long before the sheep in the cabin came out to help the fallen sheep. I ran through the barn and out the back entrance. There was a stream that led into a forest I jumped in and began to swim my hardest towards the woods when I had finally swum deep enough into the woods for them not to be able to find me anymore, I grabbed the shoreline and pulled myself up out of the stream. I was wet and cold and tired and hungry. I saw what looked like a storage shed in a clearing in the woods. I ran to it and inside it I found a box of matches and some paper that I crumbled and took with me. I got out of there as fast as I could as I knew where there was a shed with matches there were soon to be sheep. I ran as far as I could and came to the edge of the forest, with nothing left to block my appearance I ran as fast as I could with what energy I had left. I ran and I ran.  I reached the mountains and continued to run. I found a cave. I wasn't sure if it was the same cave that brought me to this twisted place. I ran to the back of the cave and collapsed from exhaustion. I started a fire to keep me warm. I don't know what tomorrow brings. I don't know how many more giant sheep persons I will have to kill to save myself from becoming dinner, or even a late brunch or from becoming a pouch or a shirt or a fancy scarf. I wish this cave would lead me home, but I am fearful. I must survive, I am hiding this journal under this giant rock with part of the pages sticking out so that you will clearly see that there is something under this rock. If you find this memoir, please see that you get it to Yitzhak Arunski in Turzovka. Let him know what has happened to his brother Stanislav. Tell Yitzhak I did my best. Maybe this was the Creator of the world punishing me for all the sheep I have slaughtered and all the wool garments I have purchased to keep me warm.  Or maybe my life with my family and my brother Yitzhak was a dream. Maybe I am a human in a land of sheep with a memory of a vivid past as a man who once ate sheep. I’m not sure what to expect or how I’ll survive. Yitzhak, if this letter has reaches you, please find me. I need your help. As for now, it is time to slumber as I prepare to venture further into the unknown come daybreak...