'The Museum of Sheep' by Anne Summerfield

‘When I was a boy,’ my grandfather says, ‘sheep still lived high on the fells and on mountain sides. You’d see their white fleeces in the distance like puffs of fallen cloud.’
 
The wall screens display different breeds of sheep with names like ancient places. There’s a table where you can touch tufts of grubby wool and sniff them if you dare. The butchery room has red warnings but I sneak inside. Model legs of lamb look like limbs hacked from a tiny child. Grandfather finds me weeping. When I wipe my eyes, my hands smell alien, animal. 

First published in Ellipsis Zine, Six: 2119 (2019).