Dorothy sees that one of the cows in the next field is pregnant. She sees the fetus curled inside it, its pink, alien body translucent and veined with dark blood, the flat moonstone of its underdeveloped eye. She sees the knotted hair network of the corn roots beneath the ground, and the deep, wide tunnel that the Viper’s body cut far beneath them. She sees, and shies away from, the long, cool mass of its life, its hundreds of years of slow knowledge, its enormity of consciousness and simplicity of thought, knowing without interest, without analysis.
