The jaw pain. Again. It is a dull yet nagging feeling. As soon as I woke up, I went to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror to see me better. When I smiled, I could see that my teeth were more flattened and worn than before. They barely existed. Why does my jaw hurt so much? Is this normal? There’s cud trapped between my yellowish teeth. Is this how a cow is supposed to look in the mirror? The morning chill worsened the jaw pain. But as I needed to continue being a cow, I widely opened my mouth and moved my jaw side to side to loosen it, hoping to ease the tightness. Every time I move it that way, the other cows look at me like a weirdo, but I don’t care, ‘cause I still have to chew. I’m a cow. Why does it hurt though? Am I sick? This morning I couldn’t even ruminate on a single one. They were either just too many or too hard to gnaw. As any other cow, I grind them, swallow them, unswallow them, and swallow them again, but sometimes I wish I had none. My teeth are flattened and worn. They used to be so white and square, like Chicklets. Aren’t cows used to this? To do it so patiently? To look so calm? When there are so many, my teeth also hurt. I once found a rock in my cud. It almost broke one of my teeth. Who the hell wants a broken tooth just for doing what a cow is supposed to do? Last night, I was trying to finally swallow something that wasn’t even born yet, an incipient thing. Is that why my jaw hurts this much? I was chewing on that while I was with my other fellow cows who were chewing too. Do they also feel that funny taste when that thing is brought back up into their mouths? They seem to handle it so well. They even seem to enjoy it. They lie down in the grass so peacefully. But my black eyes were fixed on something else. And my long pointed lashes seemed to be pursuing the same thing. Do cows never get tired of this constant rumination, this chewing and swallowing and unswallowing and chewing and swallowing again? They look so natural, so ruminant. I barely am when cud comes back up again and again. It even gets trapped between my teeth, which used to be all white and clean. Now they’re full of a disgusting thing called plaque and flattened and worn. I once heard that God knows every thought we have. He even knows how many hairs we have on our heads; He counts them all. Does He know there are some hard things to chew on, to swallow? My teeth are flattened and yellowish, and there’s nothing I can do about it, ‘cause I’m a cow, and a cow I’ll always be. “Have you ever lost a tooth while grinding?” I asked one of my fellow cows. She remained pensive, moving her lower jaw slowly, so calm and focused. Apparently. After a long, long silence, she finally said, toothless: “Sometimes it is truly right and necessary.”