The Morbidly Obese Sheep

by Jonah Greenstein 

“Everyone here is collectively over-excited about things that aren’t exciting at all.”

The morbidly obese sheep was standing with the small sheep near the pasture fence. Around forty other sheep stood in the grass at the other end of the pasture. Sheep bleated in an unenthusiastic manner.

“Do you think we will ever do anything besides stand in the grass?” bleated the morbidly obese sheep.

“I do other things,” bleated the small sheep. The morbidly obese sheep turned its head to the side. Across the pasture the tall sheep chased the skinny sheep.

“It seems like we’ve just stood in the grass every day since I got back. We don’t even stand in other parts of the grass.” The small sheep looked at the morbidly obese sheep’s eyes with an earnest expression.

“I stand in other parts of the grass. Everyone stands in all the parts of the grass. You just don’t because you eat crabgrass and crabgrass only grows right here. No one else eats crabgrass.” The morbidly obese sheep ate some crabgrass.

“Why does no one else eat crabgrass? I didn’t know you stood in other parts of the grass.”

“I go stand with everyone else at night. All you do is sleep all night. No one else eats crabgrass because it is highly addictive and most sheep don’t enjoy the taste.”

“I enjoy the taste.” The morbidly obese sheep made a confused gesture with his tongue.

“You are probably morbidly obese because you eat so much crabgrass,” bleated the small sheep. The morbidly obese sheep looked at crabgrass growing under his hooves. The morbidly obese sheep looked at the sky.

“I feel like the other sheep watch me with condescending faces when I eat crabgrass.”

“That’s because the other sheep do watch you.”

The morbidly obese sheep turned his head slightly in the direction of the other sheep and then stopped as though afraid. “I tried to stop eating crabgrass but I keep eating it because it is highly addictive. Why don’t you go stand in the other parts of the grass while I’m awake. I would go with you. I feel lonely.”

“You told me you felt angry when you looked at the other sheep. You bleated at me. You bleated, ‘All of the other sheep are either boring or pro- hibitively strange.’ You told me you didn’t want to have to hear them bleat anymore. You said they sounded stupid and you didn’t want to remember how stupid you also sound when you bleat. You said you didn’t want to sound like the other sheep do when they bleat. You said you didn’t want anyone to hear you.”

“I feel lonely. You are my best friend. If I didn’t spend every day in the same pasture as the other sheep I wouldn’t care as much that they stare at me.”

“You told me they looked like they were thinking, ‘Why are we standing so close to each other?’”

“If other sheep saw me outside of this pasture they wouldn’t mind that I eat crabgrass. They wouldn’t have a herd of normal sheep to stand close to instead.”

“The grass is always greener on the other side,” the small sheep bleated in a sarcastic manner.

The morbidly obese sheep bleated, “That’s not funny. Let’s escape together. Tomorrow morning,” and the small sheep bleated, “Okay.”

“At sunrise,” bleated the morbidly obese sheep.

The next morning the morbidly obese sheep woke at noon to the sound of a team of construction robots building a fence for a new, adjacent pasture. The morbidly obese sheep viewed the mechanical activity with a high level of comprehension. The morbidly obese sheep and the small sheep stood by the fence and watched the robots work. The other sheep were bleating. The tall sheep was chasing the skinny sheep still but the skinny sheep wasn’t there, leaving the tall sheep in a state of disorientation and unrecognizable depression. The tall sheep seemed incapable of blinking its wide eyes. It kept running in circles. The other sheep were running too, and bleating loudly.

“Remember that time humans discovered that our intelligence was equivalent to theirs and a bunch of important sounding people wrote a bunch of articles about it and talked about it in televised meetings in expensive hotels,” bleated the morbidly obese sheep.

“And then they stopped caring and started cutting off our fur again and everyone came back to the pastures,” the small sheep bleated.

“Yeah. That was funny.” “I think history is boring.”

The morbidly obese sheep ate some crabgrass.

“You shouldn’t eat so much crabgrass,” bleated the small sheep. “Why are you telling me not to do the only thing that makes me feel happy? Telling me not to eat crabgrass is like specifically telling me to live every day fearing eye contact, and to become disengaged with everything that other sheep have always told me is worthwhile. Crabgrass fixes my problems.”

“You didn’t talk like this before you ate crabgrass. Did you even have problems before you started eating crabgrass?”

“I don’t remember.”

The morbidly obese sheep couldn’t remember a lot of things. He had been taken to the city to participate in a contemporary art exhibition fea- turing social commentary on the “intelligent sheep issue.” It had mostly consisted of sheep standing in dirt on an art museum floor instead of stand- ing in grass in a pasture. Since leaving the pasture, everything felt like a blur, like he hadn’t even been there. He hadn’t been there when his mother had visited him in the city. He hadn’t been there when she left, either. He had stood on the street corner with a million things he wanted to bleat, but instead stood there silently. He could not bleat. He had started to cry the minute she turned and walked away, and as much as he wanted her to notice, he had concealed his sorrow. She had been assigned to a new pasture and they would not see each other for a long time. He could remember not wanting his mother ever to leave, but could hardly remember the moments when she had been there with him, and all of this made him want to be a lamb again. The morbidly obese sheep wanted to be a lamb again. 

“You never ate crabgrass before you went to the city,” the small sheep bleated. “What happened to you there?” 

“I loved it,” bleated the morbidly obese sheep. “The city isn’t slow and inconsequential like the pasture. Glowing concrete towers above you and each day it is blatantly clear that you are alone in this world, and – as if to prove a point – you could be killed at any moment. You are constantly forced to reckon with the fact that you’re either the best or you’re nobody, and even if you are the best, people will eventually forget about you.” 

The small sheep looked at the morbidly obese sheep. 

“Is that what the art museum was like?” 

“Everyone just stared at me. And the other sheep. On the day that admission was free, a homeless person came in and everyone stared at him, too. I got bored a lot. One day I made hoof prints in the dirt a lot of times, I was so bored. Someone saw it and thought it was ‘brilliant.’ They said the repetition ‘dissolved the individual significance’ and then allowed the piece to ‘transcend to a more universal importance.’ I bleated, ‘What piece. I am just really bored and this is dirt,’ and then he wrote an article about it or something and eventually they sent me back to the pasture.” 

“When we escape we should go to the city,” the small sheep bleated. 

“I don’t know why we would go anywhere else. We will escape tomorrow.” 

The next morning the morbidly obese sheep and the small sheep stood and watched the continued construction of the adjacent pasture. 

“Do you think they are bringing more sheep for the new pasture, or are they going to split us up?” bleated the morbidly obese sheep. 

“I don’t know. Probably both.” 

“I have an idea for an art exhibit once we get to the city.” 

“Are sheep allowed to create art?” 

“I don’t think so. That’s part of the appeal.” 

“What is the idea?” 

“The staff of the venue continually set up for a performance and play sound checks through speakers and test the lights but there is no performer. Everyone just sits there and stares and nothing happens and it’s their own fault.” 

“How come you don’t roll in the dirt anymore?” 

The morbidly obese sheep lowered his head. 

“It seems pointless,” the morbidly obese sheep bleated. 

“You used to enjoy it a lot.” 

“I used to do it a lot but I also used to be clueless. I was happiest when I was clueless.” 

“The tall sheep still rolls in the dirt.” 

“Everyone loves the tall sheep and everyone watches him and smiles when he rolls in the dirt. Nobody watches me. It doesn’t make a difference if I roll in the dirt or not,” the morbidly obese sheep bleated, looking slowly – without moving his head – at the dirt area of the pasture. “Do you think they are going to divide the sheep in this pasture?” 

“Maybe.” 

“How do you think they will decide which sheep go where?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“I have another idea for an art exhibit. The staff of the venue set up chairs for an audience on both sides of a curtain. Both audiences think they are looking at a stage, but when the curtain is drawn, they’re staring at each other.” 

The morbidly obese sheep woke earlier than he could ever remember waking. Dew on the grass hadn’t evaporated yet. The morbidly obese sheep looked at the crabgrass. It seemed very wet. The morbidly obese sheep didn’t see the small sheep, and observed the true solitude of his existence without his best friend. The morbidly obese sheep thought about bleating as a means of locating the small sheep. The morbidly obese sheep took several minuscule steps within the familiar part of the grass. The other sheep seemed distracted to some degree. The morbidly obese sheep laid back down with firmly shut eyelids, but could not sleep. 

The morbidly obese sheep heard sheep bleating from a new direction. He looked into the new pasture and saw new sheep along with some sheep he recognized. The small sheep was with the new sheep. The sheep bleated at each other from each side of the fence. 

The morbidly obese sheep bleated, “I knew this was going to happen. We need to escape this pasture. These pastures.” 

The small sheep bleated, “The new sheep say the humans use adjacent pastures when they are going to slaughter sheep for eating. They are going to help our side escape tomorrow morning. Come escape with us. No crabgrass today, we leave at sunrise.” 

That night the morbidly obese sheep did not sleep. Eventually the sun rose again. The morbidly obese sheep knew he had failed. It didn’t matter how late he stayed up, the new day started without him. The morbidly obese sheep understood he was not physically well-proportioned enough to escape. The small sheep bleated from the other side of the fence. 

“We are leaving now. Climb the fence. Dig under the fence. Escape with us.”

“I can’t do it.” 

“Crabgrass.” 

“I couldn’t help it.” 

The morbidly obese sheep had a million things to bleat but did not bleat. The small sheep slowly backed away from the fence. The morbidly obese sheep bleated. 

“Once, back when humans used roads, a couple walked by the pasture and stopped to lean on our fence. The girl said, ‘Aren’t you glad we don’t live inside fences like this.’ Right in front of me. I couldn’t believe it. I bleated, ‘This is someone’s home. I don’t see you leaving the planet very often.’ They didn’t listen. Later he broke up with her right there and I had to listen to them for like an hour. I kept bleating, ‘Stop,’ and, ‘This is someone’s home,’ but they didn’t listen. I bleated a lot. I just think you should only have to be around people you like, and you should get to be around them when you want.” 

“Why did you tell me that story?” bleated the small sheep before walking away for the last time, leaving the morbidly obese sheep abandoned for the rest of his life. 

The morbidly obese sheep said, “Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa,” and rolled in the dirt alone. 

Jonah Greenstein is currently a sophomore majoring in Film, and minoring in Math and potentially Philosophy. Prose writing interests him for its ability to simplify, imply, and move elliptically through time – functions which he is now working to bring to my screenwriting. His favorite authors include Lorrie Moore, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert A. Heinlein, and Philip K. Dick