MISFIT DOC: My Sweetheart Bleats

Dear Baby,

The blizzard came early; the sagging sky birthed her first wet fluffy babies for the season. The

whole farm is wearing a baby blanket made of baby snowflakes. I’m writing to remind you that

once the sky drops her last litter (the weathervane predicts that will be in three months time)

you’ll need to come home.

 

All the sheep are late, earlier than expected, thanks to the blizzard. All the sheep! Every last ewe

on the farm is full of another sheep. Not a single one barren. Isn’t this great news? I’ll make sure

to give our King Ram a special treat to congratulate him.

 

Come home comely,

Baby

 

Dear Baby,

The ewes have been growing rapidly. They look so cute, those moaning puffs.

You should really come home and check them out. Their swollen labia look just like ours, but

soon they will swell up so big like bubble gum bubbles filling all the way up with breath before

they bust and shrink back down to size (the lips, but also the whole ewe). Don’t miss our

expanding sheep before they contract.

 

The snow has not melted, you still have time to get here before the agar-agar fields thaw and the

ewes bloom.

 

Puckered kisses,

Baby

 

Dear Baby,

Where are you? According to the weathervane, last night’s blizzard marked the

last snow babies of the season. That means the ewes will lamb soon, yet you are not here and

show no signs of homecoming. I suspect the maternity barn is becoming too much for me to

handle alone.

 

Come home. I’m not worried; I’m just disappointed.

 

Sheepishly yours,

Baby

 

 

Dear Baby,

No longer are our livestock cute balls of future-yarn with pink taffy lips pouting under their

tails, now they are bleating nuisances with some kind of contagious flesh disease. Remember the

Ewe called Baby Babs? She was patient zero. She sprouted purple scabs on her lips yesterday, in

the morning. The other ewes started nibbling affectionately at her sores in order to relieve her of

the itch she could not scratch, what with her mobility compromised by a body so full of body.

Within minutes of ingesting Babs’ scabs, all the other ewe’s labia developed purple blemishes

too.

 

Upon further inspection, I noticed the sheep labia lesions are like constellations in the sky. Baby

Babs is decorated with Orion’s Belt; Baby Betty’s got Taurus. They’re looking infected. Should I

peel the scabs back and see what seeps from the wet wounds? I suppose I should dab disinfectant

on them. I suppose I’ll do that now.

 

Won’t you nibble my scabs when I’m pregnant?

Baby

 

 

Dear Baby,

There will be no more snows, but it’s still so cold. Last night, I went into the incubation shed to

get my own heart all toasty. I knocked a basket of fresh hen eggs up off their shelf and into the

sink, so I battered myself in a bath of unfertilized bird goo and exfoliated with cracked shells.

The sheeps’ labial rashes have not cleared up, but are not spreading to other body parts. Also, the

Ewe called Baby Baily gave birth to a two-headed lamb. I’m calling them Baby Chang and Baby

Eng. Only one head is ever awake at a time. They are so cute now that they aren’t covered in

Baby Baily’s insides anymore.

 

Oh, I have to go. The Ewe called Bobbie Baby is going into labor. She is so wooly, yes sir yes

sir, we will get three bags full of enough yarn to spin all the post-natal lambpons I’ll ever need to

plug up the shedding uterine leaks of the whole flock.

 

Why aren’t you answering me? Should I put a cork in it?

 

Absorbingly yours,

Baby

 

Dear Baby,

Under the full moon, only one new lamb was born. Baby Bonnie birthed Baby Clarice, whose

heart is protected only by a thin membrane and pulses outside her chest cavity to the beat of The

Entry of the Gladiators. I’m scared to leave the mothers and their babies alone for even a

moment. I could really use another pair of eyes.

 

Moonfully yours,

Baby

 

Dear Baby,

All the lambs have come out. Baby Bernadette’s a mother to twelve lambs so little, you’d

mistake them for bunny babies. Brenda Baby’s babies are grey and covered in scales like moth

wings. Sadly, Baby Bambi had a baby ram lamb with horns that will one day curl in reverse, but

he ran away once his eyes opened up. Baby Bambi does not seem too down about her runaway

ram. She is still producing milk that tastes just fine.

 

I didn’t write all week on account of all the new lamb babies to care for. I’m a lamby-nanny until

they bulk into ewes and rams and therefore have been too wooly to willingly write. Where are

you?

 

Practically perfectly yours,

Baby

 

Dear Baby,

The ewes are bleating because the lambs are bleeding! All the little ones are sanguine spotted.

Come home before anyone drop dead.

 

Bloody curtly,

Baby

 

PS Never you mind. It’s not blood dying the twin lambs’ tiny wooly body as they bleed out and

die. A can of red paint tipped over and dribbled pigment from a crack in the roof right on to the

babies.

 

PPS I checked paint cans and they were filled with blood. Not sure whose. Ha ha. Ba ba. Boffo.

 

Dear Baby,

All the sheep and all the lambs are dead. Wolves attacked while I shaved my legs in the bath.

Now you don’t have to come home, period.

Mournfully yours,

Baby

Joanna Rafael Goldberg lives and writes in New York City.

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