The path to the farm was a verdant one, with vegetation of all kinds growing along the route. Vines and roots and shoots pocket-marked the path, and the stones were cracked and caving under years of pressure. Still they glowed brightly in the reflected light from the lamposts. Jasper shivered as he made his way onwards. It was cold for a fur without a furry coat.
Presently, the woods opened up before him, and he found himself hiking uphill over the rougher stones, until he found himself in open land. True to the signpost’s description, the land here was smooth and tamed – thin grass covering very clearly designated fields, stretching for as far as Jasper could see.
“Look, over there,” said Juni, appearing at his side.
“Jeeze!” Jasper said, “Where the hell did you come from?”
“Never mind that now. Look,” the cat said.
Jasper followed her finger, and saw in the distance a large, wooden structure. “Huh, looks like some sort of... barn?” he said.
“Strangest barn I’ve ever seen,” Juni replied. It was, Jasper had to admit, rather odd. Where the barns he was familiar with were simple wooden affairs of little consideration, this had the bare bones of that, plus a lot more. For a start, it was a lot bigger than any barn he had ever seen before, and great glass tubes rose up the sides of the gigantic structure curling smoothly over into the roof, full of green, yellow and black liquids oozing slowly.
“Looks kind of intimidating,” Juni said.
“We should go take a look.” Jasper said. He wasn’t about to be intimidated by a barn.
“I don’t know...”
“Well, if you want to stay here, that’s fine by me. I’m going to take a look,” he said, and promptly continued down the path.
Juni ran to catch up, and then walked along with him, arms folded. “Notice anything funny about this place?” she asked.
“I’ve not noticed anything normal about any place since I got here,” Jasper replied. “But that’s just me. I go with the flow. Who are you anyway?”
“Look around,” Juni said, ignoring the question. “Fields and fields of green, green grass. Not more than a couple of inches tall at most.”
“It’s farmland. You never seen a farm before?”
“I’ve never seen a farm without anything growing,” she countered.
Jasper looked around and saw it was true. There were no signs of anything coming out from the earth besides the thin shoots of grass. “Maybe it’s off-season,” he said.
“And yet still this well tended?”
“Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s a livestock farm,” he countered, stopping and looking out over the fields. Silence, and not an animal in sight. “In winter,” he added.
Juni gave him a look.
“You’re clearly the expert around here,” Jasper said. “Why don’t you tell me.”
“We’re here,” Juni said.
“What do you mea-” he turned and looked up, and high above the gigantic barn towered, it’s door just a metre from his face. “See, now that’s just not right.”
“You’d do a lot better if you stopped trying to explain things, and instead tried to understand,” she said.
“Well, that’s unhelpful,” Jasper said as he walked over and pulled at the door. It swung open easily, without a sound. “You coming?” he said, before he darted inside.
Juni shook her head.
Inside, the room was filled with a low steady series of hisses and squealches from pipes which ran across the walls and into wooden pens. Above, green lights cast a sickly glow over the entire place, made hazy by a wet mist which seemed to hang in the air. Curious, Jasper approached the nearest pen.
The mist was thicker over the pens, but as Jasper approached it cleared enough to see inside. He half expected it to be empty, and half expected it to be an animal sedated, or hooked into some sort of elaborate milking machine.
“Well, I was half right,” Jasper said, recoiling a little.
In the small wooden pen was a raised pedestal surrounded by straw, atop which there lay what was instantly recognisable as a human arm, complete with hand, four fingers and a thumb, but instantly conspicuous by the absence of any appendage attaching beyond the forearm.
“She’s a beaut, ain’t she?” came a creepy little voice from behind. Jasper spun around and came face to face with a man. Or rather, he thought a second later, face to crotch. The man barely came up to his waist, and his white coat trailed along the ground behind him like a wedding dress’s train. “Quiet as a lamb, but just as beautiful,” he said, rubbing his knuckles and smiling up as Jasper.
“It’s an arm,” Jasper said, as if daring the man to prove him wrong.
The man nodded. “One of a kind, that one. Pedigree a mile long,” he said. “Almost seems a shame to keep them penned up like this, but they just can’t survive out there in the fields.”
“Hence the creepy machinery,” Jasper said.
“Hence my feed-a-fix-a-hold-a-sustain-a-tron.”
“Well... It’s a descriptive name, I’ll give you that.” he said, looking up at the pipework, and watching it disappear through the wooden slatted ceiling.
“Made it myself, you see,” the man said. “Had to. One of a kind deserves one of a kind.”
“So you farm... arms?”
“Oh no, no, no!” the man said.
“Good because I thought- ”
“I farm FAR more than just little old arms. Come see,” he said, and hopped over to the next pen.
“Oh... goodie,” Jasper said.
“Come see,” the man insisted again, beckoning with a gloved hand, which jasper noted was curiously close to a welder’s glove, but with a surgical sanitary glove stretched over it.
The next pen was similarly full of green mist, but instead of an arm, this one contained a leg and what looked to be a heart – but much larger. The leg was steadily being stretched and constricted by a machine, which, rather than pulling the leg itself, seemed to be directly pulling on the muscle inside the leg.
“Is that...” Jasper said, pointing to the heart.
“Yes. Animal. Don’t know which. Probably a feral. Might even be a whale. Who knows?” he said, with a wild smile. “And this is one of my prouder achievements,” he said, pointing to the leg. “Keeps the muscle tender, y’see. Won’t find a finer leg than one which has walked a million miles in my walk-or-run-in-a-tor-tron.”
“You sell these things?” Jasper said, incredulously, his eyes staring in morbid curiosity. “For people to eat?”
“No! Oh my no!” the man said again, almost as if he were insulted.
“Oh good-” Jasper said again.
“No, these are premium quality replacement parts!”
“Replacement parts?” Jasper asked, his stomach turning over a little.
The little man grinned. “Oh my yes – hundreds and hundreds of this and that for the gentleman – or woman...” he said, then paused thoughtfully. “Or both, or either – to have and to hold and to use however which way they see fit. I am not a judgemental man, Jasper. Are you?”
“Do I have my name written on a tag or something?” Jasper said, irritated.
“It’s my business to know my customers, sir,” the man said, looking a little offended.
“Your customers? Wait, is that what this is? A sale’s pitch?! No!” Jasper said, his horror evident.
“There’s no need to be alarmed, sir,” the man said, waving his hands in a calming motion. “All our products are tested to be disease and pestilence free.”
“Why would I ever want to have one of these... things... attached to me?”
The man looked sadly down at his shoes. “I’m sorry, sir. I did not think you’d be so...” he sighed. “If that is to be the way it is, you shall have to tackle the challenges of this life with what chance gave you.”
“Alright. Yes,” Jasper said. “That’s exactly what I’ll do.”
“As an aside, sir.” the little man said, “Have you ever wondered what it’s like to fly?”
“Well, everyone has,” Jasper said, a little glad to see the man brighten a little. Perhaps, he thought, even though his profession was strange, he was a stranger in a strange land. Who was he to judge? “To soar above the trees? To fly above all the barriers of the world with ease? To have no mountain hold you back. It’s most people’s dream.”
“I know you probably think of me as evil and barbaric, but I am a loving father to my children,” the man said, walking off and beckoning Jasper follow, which Jasper did, though hesitantly. “All I desire is to see them reunited with their spiritual owners.”
The next pen he was taken to contained a set of curled wings, attached at the stub to a metallic skeleton, not very dissimilar to the human backbone. “No cutting,” the man said, pointing to the frame. “Just a little pop, and suddenly bam,” the little man said, pressing his fist into his palm. “The finest, most powerful wings a man could have. No tissue loss. No nerve risk. Just wings which work, exactly as you would expect them too.”
“It is quite the dream,” Jasper admitted, looking up, following the pipes, and then catching a glance of a familiar cat out of the corner of his eye. Juni was watching from the rafters.
“After all,” the man said, looking up at Jasper from his small stature. “Which of us souls was ever born into exactly the body he desired?”
“No pain?” Jasper asked.
“A scratch, perhaps. If you’re unlucky.”
Juni stared at Jasper, cat claws digging into the wooden beams. She shook her head, slowly, and mouthed the word “no”.
