The sky was a beautiful bronze as the sun rose in the horizon. The Moo family were having breakfast. Mrs Moo was frying up eggs, and the sizzling smell of bacon wafted in the air. Little Angela Moo was having cereal steeped in milk.

Mr Moo came in and kissed its wife on the cheek. It just finished feeding the animals. It ruffled Little Angela’s hair.

“I heard the school bus coming. You better run along now. Have fun at school!”

As Little Angela grabbed its bag and dashed outside Mrs Moo served its husband its breakfast. It wolfed it down like he hadn’t eaten in months then immediately rushed outside the house. It was Harvest Day; and Harvest Day was the busiest time of the year. Mrs Moo watched it leave. “Please let the harvest be bountiful this year,” it prayed.

The animals had finished eating when Mr Moo entered. Yet when the lights were turned on, their faces were white with fear. Mr Moo rubbed its hooves together. Its big black eyes gleamed.

Its fellow oxmen filed into the barn behind him. Their golden horns gleamed in the morning light. Big, strong and sturdy, they took no nonsense from anyone. Not that the animals would put up much of a fight. It made sure of that.

The animals shied away from them, standing on their hind legs as far away from the oxmen as possible, their hands protectively over their breasts. Their bare skin shone in the early morning light.

Each oxmen positioned themselves in front of each animal, knocked away their hands, and started to squeeze the breasts. Milk dripped into silver buckets in a continuous stream.

Drip. Drip.

Squeeze and sway. Like a rhythm.

Drip. Drip.

One animal in particular was very difficult. She had been there for quite some time now, the past few months, and every time Harvest Day came around she had been quite resistant. Today four oxmen were struggling to restrain her as she bit and kicked and screamed.

Mr Moo stopped them. The animal gazed at it gratefully.

Then it hauled the animal to her feet and dragged her away. The animals watched in grave silence as the doors closed behind them.

At the slaughterhouse, Mr Moo fed the animal through the grinder. He smiled grimly as the machine chewed up skin and flesh and bone into ground meat, and as her screams mixed with the grinder’s whines and screeches.

Soft music hummed from the speakers as the family pushed their cart through the supermarket. In the trolley were two bottles of Moo’s Milk. The only thing for the baby to drink now, especially when the cows started standing on hind legs.

The daughter tugged on his shirt.

“Look!” She squealed, pointing at a packet of Moo’s Ground ‘Beef’.“Burgers?”

The father smiled in resignation and added a packet to the cart. Since the mother disappeared a few months ago times had been tight.

He prayed his daughter wouldn’t be next.