Lydias køer

Midt i OPHOBNINGEN af stress og skam og skyld over missede og snarlige deadlines på al den ANDEN skrivning, herunder en væsentlig skrivning om Hans Otto Jørgensen, (plus en let, velfortjent hovedpine) ankommer med pakkepost som verdens mindste pakke Lydia Davis' 38 sider korte og foto-illustrerede chapbook The Cows, der handler om tre køer på en nabomark, hvad de laver af meget, meget lidt og hvordan de fra forskellige vinkler og på forskellige årstider og tidspunker på dagen ser ud, sirligt muhende minimalisme, og sådan begynder det:

Each new day, when they come out from the far side of the barn, it is like the next act, or the start of an entirely new play.

They amble out from the far side of the barn with their rhythmic, graceful walk, and it is an occasion, like the strta of a parade.

Sometimes the second and third come out in stately procession while the first has stopped and stands still, staring.

They come out from behind the barn as though something is going to happen, and then nothing happens.

Or we pull back the curtain in the morning and they are already there, in the early sunlight.

They are deep, inky black. It is a black that swallows light.
Their bodies are entirely blasck, but they have white on their faces. On the faces on two of them, there are large patches of white, like a mask. On the face of the third, there is only a small patch on the forehead, the size of a silver dollar.

They are motionless until they move again, one foot and the another - fore, hind, fore, hind - and stop in another pælace, motionless again.

- jeg ved ikke, hvad jeg hellere ville have læst i dag end dette vennehæfte om køer, men nu har jeg læst det, og klokken er endnu ikke 11, jeg tror bare, jeg læser det igen.